


a pirate's life for me

by sungmemoonstruck



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Enjolras is perpetually exasperated, Multi, Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungmemoonstruck/pseuds/sungmemoonstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Cosette Fauchelevent had ever wanted was to sail the high seas.</p><p>All Enjolras, captain of the good ship <i>Les Amis de l'ABC</i>, wants is for himself and his crew to make it back to Tortuga in one piece.</p><p>Nobody ever said that a pirate’s life was easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you could PLEASE bear with me when it comes to my knowledge of anything from the pirate era/ships/etc., because while I have tried really hard to be as accurate as I can, most of what I know about any of that stuff is from Pirates of the Caribbean.

_She is drowning._

_The sea engulfs her, its fluid arms inviting her further, pulling her down, down to an abyss that’s black and cold. Her eyes sting from the salt and she can almost feel her own lungs convulsing in on themselves. She writhes in the water, trying to swim for the surface but the ocean is a strong and powerful mistress and she is giving in with every second she doesn’t breathe._

_Her body is aflame. Her head is pounding. There’s no way out, no escape…_

_And slowly, she stops fighting._

_She can’t keep her breath in much longer._

_The water strangles her. She doesn’t even try to stop it—she doesn’t have the energy anymore. She’s knocked every which-way, and the light above her fades._

_The sea welcomes her with open arms and she clings to its shoulders, falling deeper and deeper till all that surrounds her is darkness._

 

Waking, she gasped, heaving in air till she was certain salty waves wouldn’t try to throttle her again. The world spun back into the familiar dimness of her tiny bedroom; she could see the outlines of her desk, books, the flowers given to her by her father earlier that day. The window was open and moonlight poured in, but all the same, she felt too restricted by the covers of her bed, so she threw them off with shaking hands and stepped onto the cool stone of her floor.

 _Solid ground is a blessing_ , she thought. _I won’t ever take advantage of it again._

Sitting at her windowsill, she watched the night, in all its stillness and enchantments. Her father’s house on the hill always had such a wonderful view of the town—the harbor in particular—and from her window she could see the sea perfectly; there was no hostility in its waters, not like in her dream, just the reflection of a moon so bright, she wondered why there was ever such a need for day again. The salt in the air filled her senses and hit her with the overwhelming need to sink back into the water, gently this time, like greeting an old friend rather than feeling a force of nature.

With a sigh, she leaned back against the wall. Wanderlust was a maddening thing—this was getting out of hand.

The first time she had ever ridden on a boat was just after Father had taken her in. She’d known so little about her new Papa, she’d figured him a pirate, and thought that this was her new life—to sail the high seas, with nothing to worry about but the breeze in her face and the speeding waves licking at her feet. The crew had been nothing but pleasant to her and the boat had such a homey feeling. Father had played hide-and-seek with her around the deck (how terrible he was at the game) and sometimes, if she was good, he’d let her stay up and dance with him and the crew till dawn.

And oh, how close she had grown to the sea. How it shone for her like it did now as it stole the moonlight. How she’d played with it and danced with it till dawn (her favorite dancing partner). How she’d spent hours simply watching waves roll by. How it warmed her heart to see it sparkle.

A new family and a new home and a new life in a completely new world. It had been the best week of her life.

But Father had not been a pirate. He was the beneficiary of a small town, with enough riches to provide her with a life that had no worry, no hardships.  The moment they stepped off the boat, she waited eagerly for its return, to take them back to the sea once again. Days passed, and she waited. A month. Two. Three.

What a wonderful life Father had given her. She couldn’t have asked for a better person with whom to grow up, with whom to play hide-and-seek and even still, dance on the balcony to a rising sun. What a life of love and laughter he’d given her.

But her heart had been stolen by the sea, and no matter how hard she tried, she could never truly get it back.

She shut her eyes. She was being silly. She had such a wonderful life here, how could she possibly want anything else? What would Father say, after all that he’d done for her? How could she curse such selfishness, but never have any success in casting it out?

 _Honestly, you’d think nightmares of drowning would be enough to deter a girl_.

Gazing at the harbor, she watched the boats with intrigue. No one was really out tonight, not that she could tell from her distance, but she could just imagine steering one of those ships onto the high seas, a sword on her hip and a mischievous glint in her eye. She’d shout orders to her fellow shipmates, watching their backs as they navigated the boat to shore. She wasn’t sure how much pillaging and plundering she cared for, but that was hardly the point. She’d travel everywhere, and the children would sing songs about her adventures, fighting fiends and fishing for riches. Without even realizing it, the thought of it all brought a grin to her face.

When she caught herself, the grin vanished, replaced by a weight of guilt.

She had a home. She had a father. She had a lovely, comforting life. What more could she ask for?

Grimacing, she looked back to the sea, and for a moment, she let its breeze wrap her in its arms and hold her, like the loyal companion it had been since the moment she set foot onto that boat.

The sea constantly beckoned her, and no matter where she was, Cosette always followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More characters and E/R will be in the next chapter, I just needed this to be separate from that for the prologue.  
> You can find me at manicpixiedreamfedora.tumblr.com.  
> Thank you for reading! :)


	2. Chapter One

Grantaire awoke to a shirt over his face and a regrettably empty space beside him. There was a chill in the air, and he curled up beneath the bed linens to savor the warmth, but with the space at his side, the warmth was lacking, and no matter how many times Grantaire shut the window, Enjolras just _insisted_ on keeping it open. He figured Enjolras would keep it open even if the world had frozen over, forcing the crew members to make igloos in their bed chambers.

Wrapping the linens around him, he sat up, eyes adjusting to the dim candlelight. The captain sat at his desk, pouring over the books stacked against each other. For a moment, Grantaire just watched him work. Enjolras exuded passion even as he sat motionless, eyes racing over each word on every page. It was almost entrancing, to watch someone work like that, and to try to pull them out of such a state seemed unjust.

But Grantaire did not care about what was just and what wasn’t. He wadded his discarded shirt into a ball and hurled it at the captain’s head with great aim.

Enjolras did not look up.

“You’re going to work yourself to death, Captain.”

Still, Enjolras didn’t look up, but he at least waved a hand of acknowledgement. “Wasn’t it you who said just a few hours ago, ‘A captain’s work is never done’?”

“I was trying to get you to stick your hand down my trousers. I said a lot of things.”

Even in the dim light, Grantaire could see the smirk that twitched at the corner of Enjolras’ mouth. “That you did.”

Rolling his eyes, Grantaire pulled tighter at the bed linens. “Come back to bed.”

“I’m in the middle of reading.”

“Your books will still be there in the morning.”

“So will you, unless you decide to surprise us all and get up before noon.”

Grantaire huffed. “Maybe I will.”

At this, Enjolras finally raised his gaze up to give him a look of bemused disbelief. Grantaire wished he had something else to throw, but that would have meant removing himself from the partial warmth of the bed and that idea was too horrid to even think about.

The idea of moving to stand behind his captain and wrap his arms around him was less horrid, but still. Too cold.

“Come back to bed,” he pleaded again. “Warm me up.”

“Warm yourself up.” Enjolras’ eyes fell back to the book in front of him.

“No, I mean _actually_ warm me up. You’ve made it freezing in here. I’ll be ill by the time we dock in the morning.”

“Don’t tell Joly that. He’ll have a field day.”

“ _Apollo_ …” Grantaire pouted. “Just because you radiate the sun doesn’t mean the rest of us common folk do.”

Enjolras remained still for a minute, but then heaved a sigh as he pushed back his chair. Grantaire huddled into the pillows and murmured a muffled, “Close that fucking window,” which Enjolras ignored. He crawled into the empty space, wrapping his arms around Grantaire, allowing him to cling to the captain as if his life depended on it. Enjolras couldn’t help but smile into Grantaire’s dark curls.

(There was a reason he kept his chambers so cold.)

They laid in silence. After a while, Grantaire wondered if Enjolras had fallen asleep, till he heard him mutter, “I need this trade to go well.”

“I know.” This trade, worth some decent amount of gold, wasn’t part of their normal routine. They weren’t a smuggling ship by nature, but desperate times called for desperate measures. They hadn’t had a raid in weeks, and this deal they’d made with Montparnasse—as deceptive and untrustworthy as he was—happened to be their only chance of making the long journey back to Tortuga.

“I don’t trust Montparnasse.”

“Nobody trusts Montparnasse.”

Enjolras stared at the ceiling, his fingers twirling through Grantaire’s hair. The sea rocked them back and forth, the wind whistling low like a lullaby. Grantaire found it almost disconcerting. _Like the kind of quiet before a storm_ —but he dared not voice his opinion, fearing it would pull Enjolras into a greater state of anxiety.

Wasn’t that what he was there for? To ease the Captain’s troubles?

He shut his eyes and hummed in content at Enjolras’ touch.

Just as he felt the fingers of sleep brushing over him once again, he heard Enjolras murmur, “Will you be joining us tomorrow?”

“Do you permit it?” Grantaire peeked out at Enjolras for a moment. He wouldn’t be awake for much longer.

“I do.”

“Then I shall.”

Grantaire closed his eyes again and even Enjolras did the same this time. Tangled in limbs, they fell asleep to the ship’s creaks and murmurs, promising an unexpected tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

“Would you like a bird?”

Cosette spluttered her tea. She looked up at her father as if he’d just grown another head. “What?”

“Would you like a bird?” Monsieur Fauchelevent repeated calmly.

“Um.” Cosette still could have sworn she’d misheard, or that her father had decided to play some strange joke on her, but even more strangely, he appeared entirely practical. Setting down her tea and removing the cloth napkin from her lap, she leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. “Why?”

“Young girls like birds, don’t they?”

“… Some do.”

“Do you?”

“I suppose—but right now, I’d much rather know why you’re asking such a thing. Especially considering how  _you_ dislike birds.”

Monsieur Fauchelevent shrugged, snatching a biscuit before one of the servants took the tray away. He snapped it in two and handed the other half to Cosette, to which she gave a soft smile. “Birds have their uses.”

This conversation was becoming wildly confusing, and as Cosette chewed on her biscuit, she wondered if she should have been concerned that one of the servants had put something in their tea. “You once said they were lazy piles of feathers that did nothing but make foul noises all day.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“I do. It was after I’d accidentally left the window open and one flew in and wouldn’t leave. It screeched for the rest of night.”

Monsieur Fauchelevent mulled over this memory while dipping the last piece of biscuit into his tea. “I think you’re mistaken.”

“I think you’re being deliberately cryptic.”

“Some birds are also quite cryptic, I’ve heard.”

“Father!” Cosette groaned. “ _What_ are you talking about?” She frowned at the smirk on her father’s face and contemplated the repercussions of getting up and leaving him to his strange rambling right there, but his next words erased the idea completely from her mind.

“Are you happy?”

She faltered. She tried not to let on about the struggle going on inside her head, one side of her wanting to scream of her longing for the world and the other trying to strap a muzzle on the possibility of voicing such an idea.

“Of course, I’m happy,” she replied. “Why on earth would you ask such a thing?”

“Because you don’t look it.”

 _Damn_. She swallowed something hard, and then put on her brightest smile. “Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly happy. I have you, don’t I?”

“Yes, but maybe I’m not enough.”

“Don’t say that.”

Monsieur Fauchelevent sighed. He leaned forward, holding his hands beneath his chin. “I’m not blind, my dear. I notice how you look when you think I can’t see. I just regret the fact that I hadn’t taken true notice of it sooner, for I fear you’ve been unhappy for some time now.”

Cosette couldn’t think of anything to say, so she just kept silent.

“I’m sorry,” he went on, “that I’ve kept you locked up for so long. You must know I do it for your safety. The world is a terrible place, Cosette, and I couldn’t bear to see it hurt you.”

“I know,” she murmured. It felt as though she’d heard that line a thousand times before—danger waits at every corner, the world is too overwhelming for a girl of her age (even though she’d aged six years since she first started hearing that excuse). But there was love behind his words, and she could never resent him for saying such things. “It’s only because you care.”

“It _is_ ,” Monsieur Fauchelevent insisted, reaching out for her hand across the table. “You’re the best thing in my life. Don’t forget that.”

She squeezed his hand, beaming at him. “And you’re the best in mine. But forgive me, I still haven’t the faintest idea what this has to do with birds.”

He chuckled. “I might be excellent company, but I thought perhaps you’d like something else, too. If it would help, at least.”

She grinned, getting out of her seat to pull him into a hug. “You really do hate birds, still, don’t you?”

“It is a pain,” he grimaced, “I will whole-heartedly endure.”

 

They soon realized that they didn’t know the first thing about caring for a bird (or any animal, for that matter), so they headed into town just before evening hit. Cosette collected a stack of books she could barely keep hold of while her father traveled to town hall to deliver some paperwork for the governor. She returned from the library before he returned from his own errand, however, and was left to wait for him by the fountain in the middle of the town square. The rare, wonderfully-weathered afternoon brought the entire population of the city out, putting them in lively, merry spirits that Cosette looked at fondly from a distance. Shifting her books in her hands, she watched the women chat amiably, surrounding the window of a jewelry shop, and the men talking boisterously as they huddled into taverns. Young children skipped around the fountain, laughing at the top of their lungs. She couldn’t recall ever doing such a thing when she was that age.

Her books seem to weigh a bit heavier.

A loud _bang_ blastedsomewhere in the shipyard. She turned to the shouts of crewmen at the far end of the town square, rigging their vessels, drinking and singing quite terribly, but so joyfully that she couldn’t help but smile. She knew their song by heart—she knew all their songs, from years of listening during her and her father’s strolls through the town—and almost took a step forward. Almost.

She could never go into the shipyard, not without her father, and he would never take her there, anyway.

 _But if he didn’t know_ …

She could just take a look inside, just to see what it was like. Her father always took his time whenever he visited the town hall, so she was positive she’d return to her place by the fountain before he arrived.

The muzzling, responsible part of her scowled. How could she even think of disobeying him like this, after their conversation earlier? He was going to get her a bird, for heaven’s sake.

 _Perhaps that’s why he wants to get you a bird_ ,  _so you can understand what it means to keep something you care for in a cage._

She bit on her lip, hating herself just a little for even thinking such a thing, and wanting to go near the shipyard even more.

 _No_ , she chided herself. _Cosette, you will wait here. You can’t be so selfish. You won’t step foot near that harbor._

With a determined nod, she set her books down on the fountain’s edge and crossed her arms, rooting her feet to the ground. She would not move a muscle.

Three minutes later, she called for one of the children to look after her books, snatched a small shard of glass from the ground (for protection—her father had taught her many forms of combat over the years, just in case), and hurried over to the shipyard, splashing mud along the hem of her dress.

The first thing she noticed, aside from the evident ships that were even more massive up close, was the smell, a mix of saltwater and something rotting. Second was just how crowded the harbor really was: sailors ran around just as much as the children did, except most of these men were drunk and yelled much more obscenities at each other. She glanced away from the leers of a few of the men and was more than once almost shoved to the ground from all the rest, who didn’t give her a passing glance, save for thinking she was in the way of wherever they needed to hurry to so quickly. She was glad for the shard she carried, although she was certain it didn’t look at all intimidating. She wondered how hard it would be to snatch a sword off of one of the sailors, should the situation come to that.

Oh, but the ships were stunning. They carry such brilliance and such prominence that she had only ever read about, and it warmed her heart to know that her books hadn’t lied. She wandered closer to the docks, closer to the water, where she breathed in the salty air.

“Hello,” she said to the ocean, and she liked to think it whispered its greetings back.

“Hello yourself.”

Cosette jumped, so startled that she would have tripped over the edge of the dock, had she not reached out for one of the dock posts.

“Forgive me, dear _mademoiselle_! Are you alright?”

She knew it was surely _not_ the ocean talking to her, but it might as well have been. The almost sing-song voice came from somewhere above her, or behind her, or beside her, or all around her, yet when she regained her balance and looked around, no one was there.

“Er—yes, fine. I’m fine,” she replied, unsure of where she should be speaking.

“Thank heavens. It was not my intention to startle you.” It sounded as though the voice called from one of the ships along the dock, a hunkering old thing with nonsensical carvings up and around the starboard side.

“Not your fault. I’ve never been one for surprises.” She walked closer to the ship, trying to crane her neck so that she might be able to see the speaker. “Where are you?”

“Look higher!”

She did, and at first, she still saw nothing, till a shadow moved behind the fore topsail. The head of a young man poked out, followed by the rest of his body. He swayed onto the yard, leaning expertly on topsail despite the height, tipping his three-cornered captain’s hat to her.

“Isn’t that awfully high up?” she called out.

“Does it worry you?” he asked. “Shall I come down?”

But before she could answer any which way, the man grabbed a loose rope hanging from the tip of the topsail and swung down, just as a sudden gust of wind hit the harbor. Cosette feared she was about to watch the man’s doom, but at the most, his landing on the deck—on his feet and unscathed—was only a little more to the right than he’d planned. The wind had blown off his hat as he fell, carrying it across the dock. Cosette hurried to grab it before it blew too far away.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, relieved that she was not to see any fatalities in that moment.

The young man shrugged as he brushed himself off. “I’ve been told it’s rude to place yourself above the people. Different context, but still…” He looked up at her, a light grin on his face, and leaned against the deck railing. “The hat thanks you. You saved its life.”

“The hat is much obliged. It was nothing.”

“Nothing? How can you say that rescuing it from certain death was nothing? You did it a great service, kind _mademoiselle_. It is forever in your debt.”

Cosette couldn’t stop her laugh. The hat hung off one hand, and in the other, she gripped the glass shard. “Is this how all pirates court women? By swinging across ships and claiming hats are eternally grateful?”

“Perhaps, but I would never court a person in such a way. That kind of courting is more for the heroes of children’s stories.”

“If you’re not a hero, then what are you?”

“A romantic, through and through. If I had the courage, I would spend hours watching the sea from my cabin window, thinking of nothing but my poor beloved, for we would be separated by bodies of water and cutthroats and mountains of gold. I would write letters I would never send, have conversations in my head that I could never have in real life—and then, when we docked, I would sneak from the ship in the night, in my best clothing, carrying my unsent letters. I’d go to her home and recite words of love and adoration to the window till she came out. ‘She walks in beauty,’” he cried, looking up at the sky, speaking to an invisible Juliet somewhere in the clouds, “‘like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies/And all that’s best of dark and bright/Meet in her aspect and her eyes/This mellowed to that tender light/Which heaven to gaudy day denies.’”

He swayed across the deck, speaking his poetic words, till he reached the edge of the boat, where a plank connected the ship to the harbor below. “‘One shade the more, one ray the less/Had half impaired the nameless grace/Which waves in every raven tress/Or softly lightens o’er her face.’” He leaped out on the plank, once again daring to defy gravity and once again winning by landing firmly in the mud.

He approached her at arm’s length, probably noting her slight apprehension, and bowed to her. “‘Where thoughts serenely sweet express/How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.’” When he straightened, he said much less emphatically, “Not that I don’t do any that already, but it’s more for my own passion than for others.”

Cosette tried not to blush. He may have been putting on a show, but there was more sincerity to his poetic words than any declarations she’d ever heard, not that she’d heard many declarations before.

“But it’s not about courting, you see,” he went on. “It _is_ about love; you learn to take less advantage of the beautiful things when you’re out at sea for so long. Believe me when I say my heart is ‘a heart whose love is innocent’!”

Cosette giggled, holding out the hat, and the man took it, giggling back. His skinny frame could hardly be concealed under layers of mismatched clothing—bright, if a little stained, in an array of colors. When he put the hat on his head, it looked lopsided and too big for him. He pulled a long braid out from beneath it and played with the flowers sticking out of the creases.

“What’s your name?” she asked as he plucked one of the flowers, spinning it between his fingers.

“Jean Prouvaire, but all my friends call me Jehan. And yours?”

“Euphrasie, but all my friends”— _You mean, just Father, whom you really_ should _be getting back to_ , she thought bitterly—“call me Cosette.”

“‘Cosette,’” he repeated, testing the name. “It means little thing, correct?”

She nodded. It seemed safe enough to relax—Jehan looked more like the type of man to plunder a bed of roses than storm into someone’s home and overtake their family. She loosened her grip on the glass shard a little.

“I _should_ be going,” she stated, a bit mournfully, but then added, to delay her departure a bit further, “This is a marvelous boat.” She gazed at each corner and crevice of the massive ship that she could see from where she stood. “You must be a proud captain.”

“Oh, I’m not the captain. I just like to wear the hat.” Jehan sniffed the flower, sighing into its petals. “No, I would never want such a job. I’m the carpenter, and I thank you for calling my darling ship marvelous.”

“Oh, but she is!” Hunkering as the ship may have been, Cosette couldn’t help but admire the intricate craftsmanship Jehan had put into it, the incredible detailing in those nonsensical carvings and the amazing work she could see of the deck and the railings and the masts. In fact, the more she looked at it, the more it occurred that none other in the harbor could compare. “She’s gorgeous.”

Jehan beamed. He took a careful step forward, and when Cosette didn’t stop him, he took another step, till he was so close that she could see and count the sun-kissed freckles that dotted his nose.

“For you, little thing of beauty,” he said, tucking the flower behind her ear. He then took her hand and placed a light kiss upon her knuckles. “I hope we meet again.”

She was definitely blushing now, but so was Jehan, and they both smiled at each other before she said her goodbyes and wandered off back to the town square, where her books waited at the fountain.

When Monsieur Fauchelevent returned, he commented about how she seemed to be in brighter spirits.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Cosette asked, twirling Jehan’s flower in her hand. “I’m getting a bird.”

Her smile remained for the rest of the way home.

 

* * *

 

Darkness rolled across the sea. It surrounded Admiral Javert and he breathed it in, practically feeding off of it. He looked out beyond the quarterdeck, where in the distance, the meek shape of a port stood outlined against the fog. There was a sort of serenity in the air, the kind that wrapped itself in the sky and choked the stars till they bled light.

The Admiral tapped his foot in time with their heartbeats. The ship would be docking any time now.

 _You’ve nowhere to run now, Valjean_.

The Admiral raised his chin and waited, as he’d done for so very, very long.


	3. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for character death and violence.

Enjolras did not like Montparnasse for a number of reasons. Firstly, Montparnasse smelled of rum and blood and death, which wouldn’t bother him so much if it weren’t for the fact that the stench seemed to grow stronger on every occasion of their meetings. Second, Montparnasse had probably shot at not only Enjolras, but Enjolras’ crew, more times than he could count on one hand, and succeeded in wounding at least half his crew on numerous occasions. Thirdly, and most evidently above all else, Montparnasse was a cheat, and a liar, and a thief, and a murderer—and yes, Enjolras may have been all of those things, too, but at least he had a sense of dignity about it.

They’d had their dealings before, and not once had an occasion occurred where Enjolras’ party had left feeling satisfied and without the intrusion of bullets in their shoulders.

Enjolras expected nothing different from tonight’s trade.

They waited in the corner of a crowded tavern not too far from the harbor. Courfeyrac and Combeferre sat at his sides, chatting more and more animatedly to Grantaire with every swig from their bottles. Opposite him, Bahorel cleaned out the barrel of his pistol, absently pointing it at his face as he wiped it down. Enjolras eyed him cautiously; he’d told Bahorel to be more careful, to no avail but a slap on the back and Bahorel’s hearty laughter. Enjolras knew that Bahorel, being their master gunman, knew more about his pistols and cannons better than anyone he’d ever met, but the absentmindedness bothered him all the same.

He needed everything to go well tonight. They’d never make it back to Tortuga if Montparnasse cheated him again, or if Bahorel shot himself in the fucking head, or if Grantaire got so drunk that he started the whole tavern in a rousing chant of merry sea-shanties again.

“Ahem.” Courfeyrac nudged him with his boot, taking another sip from his bottle. The constant concern must have been evident on Enjolras’ face, because Courfeyrac leaned in, smelling of brandy and Jehan, and said, “You need to  _relax_.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Would if I could, luv, would if I could.”

The tavern door flew open. Light flooded in, and four men emerged—Montparnasse at the center, stopping to survey the bar before making his way over to the bar. The room quieted, but only for a moment, till someone shouted something incoherent and the entirety of the tavern erupted in laughter.

But even still, eyes lingered warily on Montparnasse and his fellow members of Patron-Minette. Enjolras cursed himself. This was a stupid idea; Montparnasse hadn’t sailed into any harbor inconspicuously in ages. In his withered top hat and fine-tailored coattails, Montparnasse didn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle.”

They didn’t make any gesture toward Enjolras and his men for a while and simply took their time enjoying their drinks and twirling their knives in their hands. _He’s doing this on purpose_ , Enjolras thought, taking a large swig of his rum. He caught Montparnasse’s gaze across the room; Montparnasse winked. Enjolras scowled.

Only when most of Enjolras’ rum had disappeared (not of his own doing, but because Grantaire decided to claim it for himself) did Montparnasse finally disentangle himself from the men and women at the bar and lead his men out of the tavern.

“No one do anything hasty.” Enjolras looked between Bahorel and Grantaire. “And nothing  _stupid_.”

Grantaire gave him a flat smile. “I am the epitome of a well-behaved young lad.”

Bahorel nodded. “We will simply keep our bullets aimed for their nether-regions instead of their heads.”

Enjolras met eyes with Combeferre, blinking. Combeferre held out his bottle of rum, and Enjolras mournfully took one second and last swig from it before leading them outside.

 _This isn’t going to end well_.

“Pleasure to meet you again, gentlemen!” Montparnasse greeted as Enjolras and his crew rounded the corner at the back of the tavern. Tapping his cane ( _Why the fucking hell does he have a fucking cane?_ ), Montparnasse bowed to them theatrically, tipping his top hat. “You’re looking fit as ever, Captain. The sea does wonders for some, and you are no exclusion.”

Enjolras refrained from rolling his eyes as dramatically as Montparnasse’s bow.

“Tell me, how  _is_  your ship?” Montparnasse flashed a mocking smile. “I saw it in the harbor. It looks like it’s seen better days. Do you fear you’ve been out at sea for too long,  _Captain_? Not even the state of your crew is what it once was. You’ve only brought four men, when you would have brought more than that in the past. Don’t tell me they’re all abandoning you,  _Captain_.”

“ _Hardly_.” Enjolras clenched his jaw. “The ship has to be looked after, and the rest are still in Tortuga, recovering from wounds from our last raid.”

“Oh, yes, we thought we’d heard something about that. Didn’t you all practically blow yourselves up?”

“It was a minor discrepancy.” Enjolras wished he could admit he was over their last raid, but the night still stuck with him, even after almost a month had passed. He could still see the panic in Courfeyrac’s eyes when he realized the raided ship had been booby trapped, when it was already too late to sail away unharmed. The remaining men from the ship, tied to the mast, had laughed in delight as just about every section of the ship started to explode in hellfire, as Enjolras’ crew—busy collecting what valuables they could—had been blown off of their feet and into the sea or nearly burned to death.

He’d almost lost half his crew that night. Their screams and cries kept his nightmares alive.

Joly had had his work cut out for him.

And  _Montparnasse_  knew  _all_  about it—Montparnasse, whose name was feared across the Caribbean more than his blade; who wasn’t part of any ship’s crew, but stowed away on boats and sliced the throats of their captains and crews, stole all their riches and food and sailed till he reached his destination, abandoning ship for a new hostage. He was the reason the Navy hanged pirates crimes as minimal as breathing, the reason Enjolras fought for justice in such an world of cruel injustice, and  _he_  knew all about Enjolras’ “minor discrepancy,” and that, mixed with his smug smile and hysterical eyes, made Enjolras want to gut him right then and there.

“As much as I’m enjoying all this catching up”—Enjolras took a step forward, hand hovering over the pistol on his hip—“do you think we could finish what we’ve started?”

Montparnasse’s lip curled.

 

* * *

 

Cosette couldn’t sleep. It seemed as though insomnia had taken its place in her life, firm and unrelenting. She couldn’t decide if this was a curse or a blessing—she couldn’t rest, couldn’t dream, but then, not dreaming meant not drowning, over and over again.

She crawled out of bed, putting on her nightdress, and moved to shut the window when something—a ship sailing into the harbor—caught her eye. Had it been any other ship, she would have never given it anything but another wistful thought, but this one was different. This one was massive, a spectacle of pristine novelty, nothing like any of the ships she had ever watched pull into the harbor before, or even like the ones she’d seen up close on the docks just nine hours earlier.

Yet she recognized its coat of arms immediately. A white flag covered in golden fleur-de-lis.

 _La Royale_. The French Navy.

It occurred to her, as a memory suddenly stirred, that the last time she’d ever seen such a ship was when she’d been heading across the sea, toward her new life with her father.

She found her father in the study, reading beside the fireplace—or rather, trying to read but succeeding more at drifting off to sleep. Head drooping to the side, he let out a gentle snore, followed by a much more obnoxious one that was so loud, he ended up waking himself. Dazed, his eyes fluttered around the room for a moment before he noticed Cosette.

“Cosette!” He yawned as he spoke, “What are you doing up at this time of night?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

Monsieur Fauchelevent opened his mouth, but only another yawn came out. “Just… reading.”

“Right.” She stepped around his chair, leaning on the back of it to peek over his shoulder. “Must be a good book.”

“God, no. It’s possibly the most dreadfully boring piece of literature—if one can even  _call_  it that—I’ve ever read.”

 “Then why did you bother reading all of it?”

He looked up at her, deadpan. “I was invested.”

She giggled. “At least tell me it ended well.”

“Absolutely. Everyone ended up dead.”

“And that’s a happy ending?”

“It is when every character turns out to be on some level of idiotic or completely useless.”

“You’re far too critical, Father.” Cosette grabbed the treacherous book from his hands, and—despite its many faults—set it gently on the table beside him. She pulled her father to his feet, leading him away from the fireplace and to the closed balcony. She swung the doors open and took in a breath of salty air. “Let’s dance,” she said, taking his arm, forcing him to spin her clumsily.

“This is hardly the time for dancing, Cosette. You aren’t a child anymore. And you ought to be asleep.”

“If I am not a child then why on earth should I go to sleep at a time everyone expects of me?”

“Alright then— _I_  should be asleep.”

“But you’re not, so why bother with the ‘shoulds’ of the world?” She swayed a bit, looking up at him with a pleading heart. Monsieur Fauchelevent hesitated at the sight of it before taking her by the hands, her bared toes and his slippers lining up together in their rightful places. They fell into a casual waltz with ease, as they always did.

“Don’t look so smug,” he told her, shaking his head.

“Me? Never.”

Her father sighed and may have muttered something along the lines of “Perpetually spoiled child,” but her shrieks of laughter as he spun her around the room muffled his words.

 

* * *

 

“I’m impressed, lads.” Montparnasse picked at his teeth with the blade of his knife, watching carefully as Claquesous finished counting the last barrels of brandy, gin, rum, and any other spirits the crew of  _Les Amis de l’ABC_  had managed to smuggle. The load _was_ impressive, and rightfully so—it took more trouble than it was worth to get it to land. Bless Courfeyrac’s connections beyond  _Les Amis_ , or they may never have gotten it off the ship.

“Aren’t you done yet?” Grantaire snapped, drumming his fingers against his pistol. He ignored the warning look Enjolras threw at him. Montparnasse had been taking his sweet time about this whole mess, and every second he didn’t have a drink in his hands felt like another second of something—anxiety, despair, did it really matter?—creeping through his skin. “The longer we’re out here, the more we risk getting caught.”

“You mean, the more  _you_  risk getting caught.” Montparnasse stepped up to Grantaire, too close for comfort, sliding the top of his cane under his jaw. Grantaire nearly pulled his gun on him. “ _I_ don’t get caught.”

“You’ll _get_  that stick up your arse if you don’t step away right now.”

“R—” Combeferre started, noticing the quiver of Gueulemer’s hand against his pistol, but Montparnasse waved them both off.

“I’ve heard worse. But the ever-so-patient Grantaire does have a point. Are we quite finished, Claquesous?”

Finally, Claquesous grunted, nodding and standing back up. Montparnasse smiled and made a gesture to Babet, who removed a small, heavy sack from his belt and threw it to Courfeyrac.

“Been a pleasure doing business with you, gents,” Montparnasse grinned, mock-bowing again. He backed away, the rest of his gang following him. “Be sure to give ’Ponine my warmest regards.”

“Wait!” Courfeyrac’s shout froze them all. He spilled the contents of the sack into his palm. “This is hardly even half of what we’re owed!”

Bahorel, Combeferre, and Grantaire had their guns pulled on each member of Patron-Minette no sooner than Gueulemer and Babet had their pistols aimed for Grantaire, Bahorel, Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac’s heads.

“Where’s our money, Montparnasse?” Enjolras seethed, wanting so desperately to reach for his gun and blow off Montparnasse’s head. He would have, too, if the barrel of Babet’s gun wasn’t pointed at his nose. “I got you the goods, everything you fucking wanted _plus_ a bit more!  _We had a deal!_ ”

“Deals change. Be thankful you got anything.”

“Fuck you! We’re not leaving till we get our money, and neither are you!”

“What the blazes—?” It happened before anyone could stop it—the owner of the tavern wandering out after hearing Enjolras’ shouts, the shot in the chest at the hand of one of Gueulemer’s pistols, and in turn, Bahorel’s perfect marksmanship between Gueulemer’s eyes. The tavern owner and Gueulemer collapsed in almost the same second.

And then Montparnasse had his gun out and his bullet sailed toward Enjolras’ heart, till Grantaire knocked him out of the way, crying out as the bullet pierced his shoulder. Combeferre shoved them both down, helping Enjolras pull Grantaire toward the open tavern door, as Bahorel and Courfeyrac covered them, ducking behind a crate and firing bullet after bullet at Patron-Minette. Grantaire’s blood gushed through Enjolras’ hands, to the floor, as they stumbled through the brawl of singing and drinking civilians, leaving a bloody trail that mixed in with the sloshes of rum dirtying the tavern.

Courfeyrac and Bahorel, moving behind them, continued shooting at the backdoor, through which Patron-Minette followed and shot back. Enjolras, Grantaire, and Combeferre stooped beneath a table as the tavern roared with gunfire, the drunks and shipmen joining in on the fight. Bahorel grabbed another table and used it to shield himself and the crew.

“You idiot!” Enjolras shouted as he searched the table above them, snatching the nearest bottle of whatever spirits he could get his hands on. He dumped it over the gunshot wound. “What were you thinking?”

Grantaire swore, biting down on his bottom lip at the sting of the alcohol. “Well,  _clearly_  I was thinking that I better get myself bloody shot so I could piss off the fucking captain!” When Enjolras finished and Combeferre began wrapping a ripped piece of his shirt around Grantaire’s shoulder, he stole the bottle from his hands and downed the rest of it in a few short swigs.

“Now is not the time to be getting wasted, R!”

“Are you fucking joking? If there was  _ever_  a time to be getting wasted,  _it’s fucking now!_ ”

“ _This is not the time to be arguing!_ ” Combeferre yelled. A drunkard tried to crawl beneath their cover, about to place his cutlass to Combeferre’s throat, but Combeferre grabbed Grantaire’s drained bottle and smashed it over the drunkard’s head before he could even try. “We need to get out of here  _now!_  Bahorel? Courf?”

“On it!” Grunting, Bahorel lifted the wooden table off the ground, swinging it around, knocking people to the side to make a path as clear as the Red Sea. Combeferre pulled Grantaire up and hurried after him, and Courfeyrac and Enjolras, pistols in hand, fired at the onslaught of bullets and cutlasses and broken glass bottles behind them. As Enjolras looked back, he realized Montparnasse was nowhere to be found.

 _This was a bad idea_.

 

* * *

 

The gunshot struck the imaginary music feeding Cosette and Monsieur Fauchelevent’s dance. The shot that followed immediately after stopped them mid-step.

“That sounded close,” Cosette murmured. Father rushed to the balcony, leaning over the edge to get a better view of whatever was happening.

“I can’t see anything, but it must have come from in town. Could be some tavern fight. A silly sailor’s duel.”

“Seems odd to start a fight tonight of all nights, with the Navy here and all.”

Even with his back turned, her father’s sudden rigidness did not go unnoticed. Cosette could feel the chill in the air that wasn’t just from the open balcony doors, the shifting tension in her father as he slowly turned around, his face dark and haunted.

“What did you say?” he trembled, crossing the room to grab her by the shoulders. “Cosette, what—”

“I said the Navy’s here!” Cosette replied, reaching for his hands to try to calm him down, but no sooner had she spoken than her father began dragging her away from the balcony, running with her up the stairs and shoving her into her own bedroom.

“Pack!” he shouted, leaving her to stand bewildered as he ran into his own bedroom across the hall. “Take only what you can carry, only what’s important! We’re leaving!”

“We’re  _what?_ ” Whirling, Cosette stormed into her father’s room, watching—stunned—as he threw clothing into a pile on his bed. He jumped from corner to corner, scouring drawers and shelves, like a man possessed by the spirit of complete and utter chaos. “Father, what on earth is going on?”

“Someone is after me,” he said, so rushed that she almost missed his words altogether.

“What, the Navy?”

“In a way.”

Cosette stared at him. “Why would—?”

“No time!” He spared half a second to glance up at her. “Why aren’t you packing?!”

“Why aren’t you telling me what’s happening?” When Cosette got no reply, she sighed, thoroughly exasperated, and stalked back to her bedroom. She took a few clothes from the wardrobe, a few books from the bookshelf, the box of trinkets beneath her pillow that contained her most prized possessions—drawings she’d been given from the sailors transporting her and her father to their new life, a golden necklace that once belonged to her mother, pictures of places she’d never been to before, Jehan’s flower—but could she manage even that? Surely this trip of vague proportions she and her father were about to embark on wouldn’t last forever, but as much as she repeated that mantra to herself whilst piling this and that into her arms, she found the words quickly losing their meaning.

She was packing too slowly for her father’s liking, as pointed out by when he hurried in and took the treasures out of her arms, letting them fall to the floor in a clatter. Cosette protested, but he hushed her, only picking up the box of trinkets and handing it back to her before running back out.

“ _Father_.” Cosette ran after him down the stairs, the tails of her nightdress getting caught around her ankles. She stopped in the middle of the staircase, watching as he ordered the confused, bleary-eyed servants to help him push desks and tables and bookcases to the doors of the house, barring their way out.  _“Father, wait!_ ”

Her cry was met with a pounding at the door.

Her father froze. “He’s here.”

The pounding grew louder and heavier, pulling Monsieur Fauchelevent out of his trance. The yells of the men outside surrounded the house, their shadows stampeding and taking place at the windows, muskets at the ready.

“ _Cosette, get down!_ ”

Cosette ducked just as the first blast shot out. The windows erupted with glass and gunfire, bullets piercing the walls and furniture. When Cosette took an unsteady glance back up, she saw the servants sprawled across the room, their blood spattered everywhere. Horrified, she stooped down, half-crawling to her father at the foot of the steps, her stomach twisting. Her father pulled her to her feet and together they ran out of the foyer, into the first floor corridor just as the second blast of gunfire rang in their tracks.

As soon as they entered the dining room, Monsieur Fauchelevent barricaded the door with chairs. “I want you to get to town, Cosette. Go out the servant’s exit, then follow the path in the woods behind the house. Stay within the shadows. They shouldn’t come after you, but I’ll fight them off for as long as I can so you can have a head start.”

“I’m not leaving you!” Appalled at his very suggestion, Cosette tugged on his arm, trying to pull him along to the kitchens with her, but he stayed still and looked her square in the eye.

“Yes. You _are_.”

It briefly registered that once, a long time ago, before oceans had stolen her heart and before she’d danced beneath moonlight, he’d looked her square in the eye and told her he was taking her away with him in that same gentle tone. His very existence was practically a wondrous illusion, having appeared out of nowhere and rescued her from a life she didn’t want to remember. If anything, her father was not a benefactor or a pirate, but a magician of the highest regard.

She gripped her little box of trinkets tighter and bit back tears.

“This is my battle, Cosette, not yours. I made a promise long ago to protect you—this is the best way I can.”

“But—”

“Take these.” From a drawer atop a shelf behind him, he grabbed a small sack of something—coins, it sounded like—and then produced a dagger. She didn’t even think to ask why on earth he kept such a blade in the house when he—for as long as she’d known him—would have never hurt a fly.

“I won’t do it, not without you,” she insisted, but the shouts sounded closer than ever and the pounding was now on the other side of the dining room door, daring to break it off of its hinges a bit more with ever strike. Her father practically hurtled her toward the kitchen door, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fight him hard enough. The dining room door collapsed, officers scrambling over the makeshift barricade.

“ _Valjean!_ ”

The servant’s exit stood in the kitchen, unharmed by the men enclosing their home. Cosette fell through, her father disguising her behind the bushes and greenery of the surrounding garden. “They don’t seem to have come round this way yet. Get as far away as you can,” her father murmured. He knelt down, placing a kiss to the top of her head. “I love you. And I’m sorry.

“I—”

But he’d shut the door before she could answer.

There was a moment when she couldn’t move. Her feet felt nailed to the floor, but her arms held onto her small bundle of money and her box and the knife, like if she let go, she would fall, endlessly and helplessly. She could hear the shouts of the men in the kitchen, the scuffle of feet and the clanking of pots and pans, as if the kitchen was being torn up amidst a war. But it was her father’s muffled voice that released her feet and gave her the strength to move, trembling, through the garden and down the hill, determined not to look back.

The solitary gunfire made her halt in her tracks.

Sobbing tears that wouldn’t fall, she fled the house on the hill once and for all.

 

No one had followed her through the woods. Every few minutes, she thought she heard a twig snap or the soft orders of an officer through the trees, but it was only the wind and her imagination. She was entirely alone.

When she made it to town, she found the place in havoc. Citizens ran around in panic as buildings went up in flames, crates and barrels exploding around them, the entire port going up in smoke. At first she thought the officers had raided the rest of the town to find her, but she stood in the middle of the chaos and saw none in sight, only the normal officers that stood watch at the town hall, whose efforts to control the madness seemed to be for naught. As she hurried further into town, she found the main source of the madness—one of the local taverns, judging by the height of the flames covering its roof and the amount of people still forcing their way out. Bar fights were not uncommon, she knew, even ones of such bizarre caliber. (“Pirates need little pushing when it comes to a brawl,” one of the servants had once told her.) The last time Cosette had seen any kind of brawl this bad, she’d simply been shut away in her house for the month, barred from the rest of the chaos of the world. She remembered fighting with her father, wanting to see what was going on. Now she thought she might have given anything to be barred away again, if it meant her father was the one with whom she spent her period of isolation.

Gunshots sung like bells in a church. People screamed as they were chased down alleys. Duels broke out, sword clashing sword, knives gutting civilians; somewhere not too far, even, cannon fire blasted in the air. Cosette dodged a collapsing pole, only to be nearly trampled to the ground, her box flying from her hands. Its contents scattered across the ground. She watched in horror as Jehan’s beautiful flower met its fate with the underside of boots, smeared into the ground for the rest its short life, along with her scattered pictures. Only the golden necklace of her mother’s survived the stampede. Cosette pushed herself from the ground and lunged for it.

Another hand grabbed it just as she reached its chain. She looked into the dirtied face of a pirate, who gave her a toothless grin and ripped the chain from her hand.

“Mine now, luv,” he sneered, shoving her off with a boot to her shoulder. She met the ground painfully again, and she curled in on herself just before one of the nearby sword fighters stepped back on her face. The pirate whistled off with her mother’s necklace, examining it in the moonlight.

 _No._  She wasn’t going to let some stranger walk off with the last piece of her mother’s memory. She wasn’t going to lose anything else.

“ _No!_ ” Reaching for the knife she’d tucked beneath her sleeve, Cosette ran after the pirate, grabbing him by the back of his shirt and placing the blade to his neck. “ _Give it back_.”

Before she could do any real damage, the pirate caught her arm, twisting it till she spun around. He gripped her neck, placing her in a chokehold. “You wanna dance with me, luv? Such a pretty little thing, you are…” The hand on her arm released her to stroke the side of her face. She used the opportunity to slam her elbow into his gut, jump from his chokehold as he doubled over, and knee him in the groin. He crumpled to the ground with a whine of pain.

She didn’t learn self-defense for nothing.

She bent down for the necklace when his hand curled around her ankle and pulled. She slipped, slamming back down to the ground once again. Groaning, she reached for her knife again when she felt the cool pressure of a pistol at the side of her head. The pirate struggled to stand, still flinching in pain, but his pistol remained on her temple.

“I said,” he sneered, his finger a millisecond away from pulling the trigger, “ _mine_.”

Cosette shut her eyes, waiting for the bullet to strike her.

A gunshot went off.

The pirate slid back down beside her, crumpling at her feet.

And behind her, with his pistol still pointed at the lifeless pirate, stood something much better than the anything she’d seen in the past twenty minutes, something far more wonderful than flower she’d treasured for only half a day.

Jehan.


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a brief death and violence.

His pistol remained pointed at the pirate’s back, in case the man had survived. His clothes were covered in blood and flowers— if she didn’t think she would have started crying at the same time, she would have laughed at the sight, it being so very _Jehan_ of him (it hardly mattered that this was their second meeting—at this point, she felt like she’d known Jehan for a thousand years).

She’d thrown her arms around his neck before he could even breathe her name.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, his light laughter fading into the sounds of the chaos surrounding them. At that, she did let out a tiny sob of a chuckle into his mangled braid.

He clutched her arms, pulling away from her embrace slightly. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe—”

“Jehan.” Her breathing was ragged, and she gripped his shoulders, afraid she might fall. The world, with its muskets and cannon fire in the distance, made her feel lightheaded. “They—they killed him… a-and the servants. They came to our house and murdered him all.”

Jehan’s face fell, his crinkled eyes for once losing their spark. “Who’s they?”

Cosette was about to answer, but a shout interrupted her, driving her attention away from Jehan. The officers from her house were here now, approaching town square with their rifles aimed and firing at the pirates and criminals tearing up the port. “Them.”

Jehan looked round. “Oh, _shit_.” Grabbing her hand, he pulled her out of the spotlight of the madness and back behind the fountain. They crouched down, peeking over the marble to watch the officers try and form a sense of order—except, in some ways, it didn’t look like they were doing much to uphold peace. If anything, as they upturned crates and barrels, and as the higher ranks sent out lower ranks across the town, it looked more like they were searching for something—or rather, someone.

“They must be looking for you.” Jehan ducked just as a handful of officers started to look their way. “They might think you’re an accomplice.”

“To my father? He didn’t do anything.” She shuddered, her face turning into a scowl. “They _massacred_ my entire home.”

Jehan looked at her sadly, bringing a hand to curl into her hair as the choir of pistols sang to them in every direction. Right then, she felt more like screaming than crying.

“I’ll get you to safety,” he murmured, lacing his fingers through hers.

“I can’t go home, Jehan, and if I can’t go there, I have nowhere.”

“Then you’re coming with me.”

Cosette stared at him, momentarily startled out of her melancholy stupor. “ _What?_ ”

“You said it yourself, you have _nowhere_ , and the Navy’s on your tail. What choice do you have?”

He was right; she didn’t have a choice at all. If she stayed in the port, she would probably be murdered within the hour, and if she somehow did survive, she still wouldn’t have a home to return to. She could sell what little riches she’d recovered from home, but soon she would be on the streets, on her own till starvation came for her in its cold, empty hands.

The officers were coming closer. Their voices filled her ears, and she could hear the voice of the highest ranking officer—the one whom she’d heard call out to her father as he chased them through their house—above them all.

“You say you have no one,” Jehan said. “ _Let me be your no one_.”

He squeezed her hand, looking desperate—he was a pirate, after all, and if the officers found her and killed her, they’d most certainly shoot or hang him. They were both dead men walking.

She squeezed his hand and nodded.

They checked to see if they could make their escape. The officers were close, but they were distracted by a band of men setting one of the buildings on fire. Cosette and Jehan rose to their feet, and Jehan was about to tug her along, when—

“Wait,” she said suddenly. She let go of his hand, creeping around the fountain, back over to where the thieving pirate lay still on the ground. She watched the scene around her, the officers trying to take control of the fire and the arsonists rejoicing and fighting back. She felt the warmth of the building, the smoke spreading and suffocating the port. If she weren’t preoccupied, she may have taken a moment to watch the burning, to admire the destruction and perhaps even find it slightly beautiful.

But she didn’t have a moment to spare. Lying near the dead pirate was her mother’s gold necklace. Cosette snatched it from the dirt, then turned her back to the fire and hurried to Jehan.

They locked hands and ran.

 

* * *

 

Enjolras was, to say the least, a bit frantic.

The brawl from the tavern had broken into a massive spree of robbery, arson, and murder. They had gotten back to the ship after twenty minutes—Grantaire had lost a lot of blood and it became more and more difficult to drag him across the port, to the shipyard, and onto the boat, and when they got there, a band of pirates from another boat had decided to try commandeering _Les Amis._ Joly had already begun shooting at them, and Enjolras and Courfeyrac fought them off for five minutes, giving Bahorel enough time to slip past the men and reload his gun; once he’d returned, only half of the commandeers were left standing. That didn’t last.

“Where’s Jehan?” Enjolras demanded as Bahorel dumped the bodies over the side of the ship.

“He took off looking for you,” Joly answered, just before running off to the infirmary, where Combeferre had carried Grantaire. Enjolras cursed, scanning the shipyard in search of the little poet, but it was pointless. The entire harbor was in a maddening state of panic. He glanced at Courfeyrac, who scanned the crowds below just as Enjolras did, although Courfeyrac’s anxiety probably outweighed Enjolras’ by miles.

“Call me when Jehan returns, which he _will_ ,” he told Courfeyrac, “and get ready to sail. We _have_ to leave.”

In the infirmary, he was greeted with Grantaire’s cries and swears, a scene that would have been relatively normal, save for the gunshot wound. Joly and Combeferre set to work quickly, Combeferre tying Grantaire’s legs and arms to the table and holding Grantaire’s torso down as Joly examined the wound. Grantaire was practically sobbing, but he looked furious through his tears. If Combeferre hadn’t been restraining him, he might have torn Joly apart right then and there.

“Stop fucking poking it and _get it out!_ ” he screamed, cringing as Joly felt the wound.

“I have to _find it_ first,” Joly snapped.

“ _WHAT DO YOU WANT, A MAP?_ ”

“Fuckin’ hell, I wish you were unconscious.”

“What are you doing here?” Grantaire shot at Enjolras, noticing him hovering awkwardly in the doorway. “You should be out there, preparing the ship!”

“Jehan’s not here. We can’t—”

“Well, you shouldn’t be here!” Grantaire hiccupped a sob of agony as Joly pressed his hand to his wound again. His teary eyes were ablaze; Enjolras didn’t think he’d ever seen such fury in them before, not even when he was so drunk at one of their meetings that he and Enjolras fought like dogs for days. “ _Get out!_ ”

“But—”

“Enjolras, he needs to calm down!” Combeferre said. “He won’t calm down with you here!”

Enjolras blinked at Grantaire—the anger somewhat softened in his eyes, but he still shook with pain, and Enjolras could practically hear his pleading even when he laid silent. With a sigh, Enjolras stepped out of the infirmary, just as Combeferre tightened the knots around Grantaire’s arms and legs and Joly brought forth a metal tube from his supplies, one with a sharp screw at the very tip.

Enjolras stood in the corridor for a moment, wincing at Grantaire’s screams before running back to the deck.

“Raise the mainsails! Prepare to weigh anchor!” He ran to Courfeyrac at the helm, surveying Bahorel as he cast off the gaskets. “Jehan?”

Courfeyrac shook his head gloomily. Enjolras chewed on his bottom lip, looking out over the ship. They couldn’t waste another second here, not with the military making arrests at every turn. Their simple trade had easily grown into a massacre across the port, and wherever Jehan was, he was stuck right in the middle of it.

“Hoist upper topsails. Set the t’gallants and royals,” he said, jumping down to the capstan. “Bahorel, help me weigh anchor!”

“But Jehan!” Courfeyrac began to protest.

“He’ll make his way back to the ship!” Enjolras shouted, and while his words sounded firm and certain, doubt clouded his mind. _Les Amis_ creaked beneath his feet, as if sensing the lack of presence of her precious carpenter, the only one who could truly hear her murmurs and sighs. Enjolras glanced back out at the harbor, praying to catch a glimpse of their poet among the hysteria. “He always does.”

 

* * *

 

They weren’t five minutes into the harbor before they were ambushed by two officers.

They held a musket to each side of Jehan’s head, though Cosette could see the tremor in the stature of one of the men. He couldn’t have been that much older than herself. “I’m placing you under arrest for piracy and kidnapping,” he said, his voice at least firmer than his hands. His eyes flickered to Cosette. “My apologies, _mademoiselle_ , for any harm this man has done to you. I shall escort you back to your home immediately.”

She didn’t hear him, her attention trained solely on the miniscule distance between Jehan’s ear and the barrel of the musket. Jehan looked at her, eyes bright and terrified. Each of their hearts hammered in their chests, counting down the number of seconds Jehan had to live.

She didn’t think. In that moment of terror, she hardly spared her judgment a second thought. All she knew was that the only person she had left in the world was in danger. She couldn't let anything take him away.

“… _Mademoiselle?_ ”

In one swift movement, she grabbed the pistol from Jehan’s hip and fired on the foot of the younger officer. Ducking as the other officer lunged for her, she swiped the sword resting at his side. Both men, even the staggering one, trained their muskets on her, but Jehan shoved them both away so they’d misfire.

Cosette saw the older officer aim his musket back at Jehan. The sword in her hand was light, an extension of her arm, just as she’d been taught as a child.

The sword felt just as light when she ran it through the officer’s chest.

The man fell and did not move again.

Jehan punched the younger officer, snatching his musket and slamming the barrel of it across the man's head. Jehan wiped a bloody lip and threw the musket down over the unconscious body.

“You saved my life.” He smiled at her, grasping her hand and pressing his lips to her dirtied knuckles. “Cosette, you’re quickly becoming my newest muse.”

Lightheaded and, at the same time, pumping with adrenaline, Cosette only flashed him a weak smile. She turned her back on the dead man and allowed Jehan to pull her away, just as a swarm of officers—having seen the attack—began to storm toward them.

But when they arrived at the docks, where Jehan's beautiful, hunkering old ship had once been was nothing but salty air.

Cosette glanced back, listening to the shouts of officers rushing after them. “Well? Where is it?”

Jehan nodded his head toward the ocean. Cosette looked in the direction he faced, and at first it was hard to tell what he was specifically looking at, with the sea covered in departing ships that all looked the same. But then she spotted the distinct form of a boat— _his_ boat—already sailing half a mile away. “Oh.”

Jehan smirked. “Hope you don’t mind a swim.”

“At this point, it’s about the sanest thing that could possibly occur.”

Taking his hands, she and Jehan jumped into the sea, with nothing but blood and gunfire in their wake.

 

* * *

 

“ _Look!_ ”

They had distanced themselves from the port, enough to calm down slightly about whether or not they could be pursued. The Navy seemed more concerned with the warring that had set the entire port ablaze, anyway. At Combeferre’s yell, Enjolras looked back toward to harbor, squinting at the dark shapes along the docks. Combeferre handed him a telescope, which he took, though he didn’t need it. The bright colors of Jehan’s clothing were like a beacon in the night.

“He’s going to swim for us,” he said, watching Jehan through the telescope just as Courfeyrac bounded to his side and snatched it from his hands.

“Looks like he’s bringing along a guest,” said Combeferre.

“It’s hardly the first time he’s brought strays aboard. Half the crew wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t.”

Courfeyrac tossed the telescope aside, peeling off his coat and shoes. “I’m going in after them.”

Enjolras dodged a shoe hurtling towards his head. “You’ll never be able to swim with both of their weights!”

“Well then, what are you waiting for?”

This was, in fact, an excellent question, one that Enjolras did not have the slightest answer to. He felt useless, commanding a crew that hardly needed commanding, and Grantaire’s softened cries, echoing across the ship, only reminded him of the control he lacked. He watched Courfeyrac jump into the water before kicking his own shoes off his feet.

“I hate this fucking port,” he grumbled. “Everything that’s happened, it’s all Montparnasse’s fault.”

Combeferre took his coat and guns, the corner of his mouth twitching with amusement. “Didn’t you choose to meet Montparnasse here, _Captain_?”

Enjolras dove into the water before Combeferre could utter another word.

 

* * *

 

The water was far colder than she had expected. The impact of the jump felt like daggers on every inch of her skin and her vision clouded over with darkness. For a second, she thought she was caught in another one of her nightmares, but the sea didn’t seem as forceful as it did then, and her urge to breathe came more automatic than usual. She found Jehan’s figure and swam for him, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in her chest for as long as she could.

The officers shot at them blindly, forcing Cosette and Jehan deeper into the water. Ahead, they could see the dim outline of the bottom of a ship, but it was so far, Cosette didn’t know how they’d make it without a breath. They pushed themselves further, drifting farther away from land, till the throbbing was so intense and so painful that the thought of a bullet in her arm hardly sounded terrible. She and Jehan broke the surface, gasping for air, and almost immediately plummeted back down as another wave of gunfire struck around them.

But the water was freezing, turning her blood to ice, weighing her down. The daggers in her skin pressed on her, pushing her deeper into the ocean, and the closer they swam to the boat, the darker this world beneath the surface seemed. Her sea was betraying her, she thought resentfully, but she wasn’t entirely surprised. Never a moment occurred, in her dreams or in real life, when the sea did not do as it pleased, and right then, it pleased to drag her in its waves and let her body burn with a fire it could never put out.

The throbbing returned, and her body felt heavy, and her strength slipped out of her. Her fingers curled around her mother’s necklace and her eyes began to close.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of Jehan’s around her. Then she felt something else hold her, something stronger and firmer and made of gold. The water rushed as she drifted faster. She clung to the golden figure, fighting the treacherous sea, till finally, after centuries, she broke free. She inhaled as much air as her lungs would allow, and while her mind and vision remained foggy, she could see at least parts of the world again. The wooden carvings she’d admired so long ago now stood directly before her, as did a rope, which she grabbed onto and used to force herself up. She climbed, trembling, and when she was near the top, hands rushed to pull her onto the deck of the ship.

She fell back against solid ground, gasping at sea air with relief. Never again would she think of the ship as old or hunkering. Jehan’s boat was by far the most precious wonder of the entire world.

Cosette felt someone lift her up, cradling her in their arms, and she looked up into Jehan’s pale face. She counted every one of his freckles as they danced across his skin when he breathed in the air as hungrily as she did and smiled at her. A dark-haired man clung to his neck, pressing his lips to Jehan’s cheek.

“Oh, Cosette,” Jehan laughed, leaning into the kiss of the man, and when the man briefly pulled back, Jehan pressed a light kiss of his own to Cosette’s forehead. “The poems I’ll write about you.”

Cosette wanted to know all about the poems he’d write about her, but the exhaustion she’d been fighting did not care about poetry in the slightest, and she had no choice but to let it have its way with her.

 

* * *

 

Her name was Cosette, Jehan told them after he’d changed into a pair of Enjolras’ clothes (why Jehan so often insisted on wearing any piece of clothing that did not belong to him, Enjolras did not know, but this was Jehan and God knew trying to understand Jehan’s habits was about as probable as his crew coming out of any sort of ambush wound-free). The Navy had killed her father, and she had no place else to go, so Jehan had invited her to come with them. It was more than apparent, after explaining how she’d saved his life, that Jehan was a little in love with her (that was Jehan’s way; he was a little in love with all of them, and if they were to be frank about it, so were they with him), so with his unyielding determination, plus the support of Courfeyrac, who was just so glad that Jehan was safe that he would have given him the world, any attempts Enjolras made of explaining how they couldn’t really afford to take on another passenger was completely futile. The girl was staying. Enjolras much too exhausted to argue, anyway.

Dawn began to break over the horizon. Enjolras stood alone, leaning against the helm, and stared, wondering if ever a time would come when he’d feel tired of such a sight. He hoped the thought would forever be unlikely.

“If Apollo stares at the sun too long, does the universe explode?” Creeping up the stairs, Grantaire leaned against the rail at the top step, purposefully blocking Enjolras’ view of the morning sky. For a moment, Enjolras considered mentioning to Grantaire that from the way he stood, it looked as though he had a halo of blinding light around his dark curls, but decided against it. Grantaire would only deny him with a roll of his eyes and make another Apollo joke again.

“If drunks stare at their bottles too long, does the universe explode?” Enjolras countered wryly, shrugging.

Grantaire smirked. “Touché.”

Enjolras moved away from the wheel, meeting Grantaire at the top of the stairs. He nudged at the blanket draped over Grantaire’s shoulder, revealing the neat sling Joly had tied up for him. Enjolras made sure not to touch, as Grantaire looks a bit defensive at the sight of anything making contact with his wound.

“You shouldn’t have gotten in front of me,” he murmured, frowning as he covered the sling with the blanket once more.

Grantaire shrugged his good shoulder. “You should know by now that you’re going to tell me to do things and I’m not going to listen. I thought that was the very basis of our relationship.” He spoke light, like he had spared Enjolras the last bowl of soup rather than saved his life, but a weighing meaning rested on the backs of his words, considering neither of them knew what the basis of their relationship truly was, other than what the heated arguments over revolution and lazy whispers in the middle of the night gave them. The territory they could feel themselves crossing into was strange and completely unidentifiable, but not unwanted.

“I’m sorry.” Enjolras stared mournfully at the bandages peeking out of the blanket. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“But it did. And as long as Joly and Combeferre don’t suddenly forget all preexisting medical knowledge, I’ll live.” The pads of his fingers brushed beneath the sleeve of Enjolras’ shirt, drifting from his elbow and down his forearm to make swirls around his wrist. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.” He curled over Enjolras’ palm, silently willing him to come closer, and Enjolras did. “I didn’t mean it.”

Enjolras shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You were in pain. I was only worried about you.”

The swirls disappeared. Something in Grantaire’s face lit up. If he tried to feign indifference, he did a terrible job at it, with the hint of a smile splayed across his face. “You were?”

“Of course. A captain has to worry about his cook. Otherwise, who’d prepare the meals?”

But Grantaire was grinning—no, _beaming_ , with no restraint whatsoever, his dark eyes outshining the horizon. He pulled Enjolras closer, capturing him in a kiss, and Enjolras hummed against his mouth, threading his hands into Grantaire’s hair. He dragged his lips across the stubble of Grantaire’s jaw, each brush a gentle _thank you—_ for saving his life, for being there, he’d never be able to repay him, and all of the other things Grantaire would never accept in words.

Grantaire could compare Enjolras to Apollo all he wanted, because right then, Enjolras thought him a more wonderful sight than the sea glittering at dawn.

Enjolras’ mouth grazed the corner of Grantaire’s, the bridge of his nose, the place between his eyes. “Let’s go to the cabin.”

Grantaire’s breath hitched, leaning into Enjolras’ touch against his temple. “Don’t you have a ship to steer, _Captain_?”

“It’ll survive for an hour.”

Grantaire laughed at this, his eyes drifting shut at one last kiss against his lips, before Enjolras led him away from the helm. Somewhere along the way, he remarked with a breathless smirk about how he should get shot more often, but then they were in the captain’s quarters and the world became skin and sweat and the near-worship of a bad shoulder, and his words were lost to the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do love me some romantic!Jolras.
> 
> I'm so sorry this took so long! I had such a hard time writing this chapter, for some reason, and then with school and my finals, the time just got away from me completely. But your lovely comments kept me going, and I thank you for that. :)
> 
> (I also spent like, two days going over sailing terms [and I say "going over" very loosely] and trying to figure out how to rig a the sails of a ship or whatever, so if you know that I'm wrong about any of the ship mechanics, please kindly point out what I should fix, because I literally understood only about 5% of what I Googled.)


	5. Chapter Four

Cosette woke to a man's soft humming and the gentle sway of the ship. Bleary-eyed, she tried to sit up, but her bones felt weighed down by a thousand anchors. The humming stopped, and a hand helped her sit up against the wall. 

"Didn't mean to wake you," spoke the man, medical supplies peeking out of every pocket on his person. He put a hand to her forehead. "How are we feeling today?" 

"Tired." Cosette rubbed her eyes, shielding herself from the sunlight. "How long was I asleep?" 

"'Bout a day and a half. Jehan will be happy to know you're awake. As much as he knew you needed the rest, he's been off the walls with anticipation, waiting for you to wake up." Cosette cracked a weak smile as the man went on, "Now then, your prognosis. You've got slight bruising around your ribs—and if you’re worried about any sort of indecency, I guarantee I acted on nothing of the sort. You also had a small fever yesterday morning, but it broke quickly. I advise you just to rest and drink a lot. You'll be fine in no time. Eat this, it'll help." From his breast pocket, the man pulled out a small, wrapped-up block, of which he broke off a small sliver. He handed it to Cosette and knelt down to pick up the few scattered medical supplies that weren't tucked away in his clothing. 

"This is chocolate," Cosette said, looking up at him curiously. 

“That it is. Doctor's orders." Closing the case of his tools, he bowed to her and headed for the cabin door, leaving her to nibble on her chocolate alone. 

The floors creaked softly in Jehan's cabin (and she knew it was Jehan's, if not for the clothing strewn out across the floor or the garments she wore, then for the parchment tacked on the walls with scribbles of rhyme, reading across each other in such a way that would have been meaningless separately. However, lined as they were across the cabin, the maps and charters of poetry flowed together perfectly). Cosette got out of the bed with some difficulty, following the sentences around the room. She found her nightdress laid across the back of a chair, stiff and dry, and Jehan's pistol on the bedside table. The cabin was really very small; as was everything in it, save for the bed, which took up about a third of the room. Her senses filled with the distinct smell of saltwater, the kind she loved but her father would have hated. He never would have let her live in such close, untidy quarters. 

The anchors on her limbs moved to her heart, sagging deep into her bones. The past day—or she supposed, two days—felt like a dream, but the unyielding weight in her chest and the presence of the ship around her was more than enough proof of her father's demise and her life's complete disarray. 

The anchors sunk, and so did she. 

 _No_. She wiped the tears from her cheeks.  _Father is dead,_ _Cosette_ _._ _You are not_. 

Heaving a sigh, Cosette stood again, removing herself from the poison of solitude. She stepped out into the corridor and headed for the deck. 

It was a bright day, the water glittering and lurching, but the deck appeared to be abandoned. After anxiously wandering around the ship, trying to find a room that wasn't empty, Cosette finally came upon the dining cabin, a dimly-lit room occupied by a group of men—Jehan and the doctor included. They huddled around a table, playing poker, by the looks of it, and drinking. She stood in the doorway for a moment, listening to their hearty conversation. 

"… Been  _a little_  quieter about it." 

"There's no fun in being quiet, Combeferre. Besides, we're at sea! Who can hear us but the ocean?" 

" _I_  can hear you." 

"And you didn't find us entertaining? Endearing?" 

"I found you tiring, and then Courfeyrac and Jehan started making similar noises, and then I found you  _exhausting_." 

"I found us quite exhausting, too—Oh, Cosette!" Jehan shot up from the table, accidentally bumping it forward in the process, though he didn't notice. His grin illuminated the dim room. He wore the captain's hat atop his head once again, but this time, somehow, it seemed to fit much better than it had when she first met him. "I see you're feeling better!" 

"Remarkably better, yes, or so the doctor tells me." Tentatively, she took a step forward. "And yourself?" 

" _Too_ well," the man who’d been called Combeferre groaned as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "believe me."

“You’re only jealous because you only have your precious books to get you all hot and bothered,” remarked a very dapper man, wearing a few of the same pieces of clothing that Jehan had worn two days earlier, only they were unstained with blood and much better suited on him than on Jehan. Standing suddenly from the table, he rushed over to Cosette, grasping her hand in his. “Pleasure to meet you, lovely _mademoiselle_. I’m Courfeyrac.” He bent his head to place a kiss on the inside of her palm.

“I see Jehan has rubbed off on you,” Cosette giggled.

“More like he’s rubbed off on me, I’m afraid,” Jehan said. His blush was prominent in the dim lighting, but he didn’t seem bashful in the slightest.

“Allow me to introduce you to the rest of our merry crew.” Taking her by the arm, Courfeyrac swept Cosette across the room, over to the table, despite the doctor’s insistence that he be careful. “You know dear Jehan, of course, as well as Joly, our doctor. Combeferre here is the navigator. You’ll often find him shelled up in some corner, pouring over his maps and literature, so be careful not to step on any of them as you walk by. Bahorel is our master gunman, so be careful not to get in his line of target practice as you walk by.”

“Not that he gives you any warning,” Joly muttered.

The burliest of them all, Bahorel, sighed. “I yelled, ‘Duck!’ didn’t I?”

“And you think that makes it all better?”

“It was only a scrape.”

“I nearly died!”

“And I _apologized!_ But really, you should have ducked.”

“Gentlemen, please. We have a guest.” Courfeyrac gave them a mock look of disapproval. “Lastly, beside Bahorel, we have Grantaire, who—as you can see—got in front of someone’s line of target practice, but thankfully, it wasn’t Bahorel’s.”

Grantaire, a man with curly hair and a carefully-wrapped sling around his shoulder, snorted. “Yes, _thankfully_.”

“Well, it is thankful. There’d be animosity on board if it had been Bahorel’s bullet in your shoulder, and we can’t have that, can we?” Courfeyrac turned to Cosette, beaming proudly. “I _am_ the ship’s quartermaster. I must keep everything in line.”

“Don’t buy into a word he says, Cosette. He makes it sound like he organizes weekly team-building exercises,” laughed Bahorel, taking a swig of his drink.

“I do. It’s called sex. Not my fault you don’t join in.”

“Er, no offence,” Cosette said, trying not to sound too surprised by Courfeyrac’s casual words—after all, she was still more used to the company of her father’s religious friends than the company of pirates, “but your crew seems awfully small for a ship this size.”

“Oh, there are more of us, but they’re in Tortuga, healing after a bad, um, mishap,” explained Jehan. “Feuilly and Bossuet and Éponine, if she’s in the mood. Sometimes Marius.”

“Only if he’s less prone to seasickness than usual,” snickered Courfeyrac.

“And the captain?” Cosette recalled a blonde man from her rescue, assuming that _he_ must be the captain, if no one else present was. “He pulled me out of the ocean, didn’t he? Where is he?”

“Sleeping,” Grantaire replied, and then smirked. “He’s a very busy man.”

“Good _God_ , would the lot of you stop?” Combeferre moaned, burying his face in his hands. “You’re _unbearable!_ ”

“He jests, Cosette, he really does.” Courfeyrac let her go to come up behind Combeferre, wrapping his arms around the navigator’s neck and planting a loud kiss to his cheek. “He loves us. His world would collapse without us.”

“Need I remind you that, thanks to you, I didn’t get much sleep last night, and for that reason, I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

“Oh, the amount of times I enter a room to hear Combeferre threatening you with gunfire, Courfeyrac.” Boots clicked against the floor behind Cosette. When she turned, she saw perhaps the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on; lean and tall, with eyes possibly bluer than the sky and sea, and blonde ringlets of hair held together by a loose ribbon. She watched him roll up his sleeve and add with a grin, “If Combeferre’s annoyance was made of money, I’d be swimming in gold.”

“Don’t laugh,” Combeferre said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re in just as much trouble as Courfeyrac.”

“ _That’s_ something you don’t hear every day,” said Bahorel, laughing again. He and Grantaire raised their bottles and then downed each of them in a single gulp.

Courfeyrac dragged Cosette over to the blonde man. “Cosette, allow me to introduce you to our _glorious_ captain, Enjolras—revolution extraordinaire, pillaging wonder, the youngest freedom fighter for the seas and the loudest—”

“That’s quite enough.” Enjolras’ trifle exasperation did not escape Cosette’s notice, but it was gone as soon as he’d taken her hand to shake. “Pleasure to meet you, Cosette. I’m glad to see you’ve made a full recovery.”

She smiled and thanked him, but thought him wrong. She was far from recovered.

The morning went on rather joyfully. Before Enjolras could say anything further to her, Joly intervened with a plea for new medical supplies, diverting the captain’s attention to finances and travel. The boys cleared their game of cards to make room for breakfast (it was breakfast to Enjolras and Cosette—everyone else had already eaten, but they claimed that breakfast had only made them hungrier). The food, made by Bahorel, was either slightly burnt or too soggy, but it was the first meal Cosette had had in just about two days and it tasted better than the gnarled flavor she’d had in her mouth due to sleep and sea salt.

“I swear, R,” Joly sighed, staring dismally at his blackened food. “I think your injury hurts us more than it hurts you.”

“Fine, then,” Grantaire replied, downing another bottle of ale. “Let me shoot you in the shoulder and relieve your suffering.”

The technicalities of the food aside, Cosette felt included, yet at the same time, like she was sitting on a desert island, watching these men drink and eat and joke with each other from a thousand miles away. She was too tired to join in their discussions about what they’d do when they finally made land at places she’d never been to or reminisce about any of the battles that she’d never taken part in. Jehan sat beside her and held her hand, giving her reassuring smiles every five minutes, but he was with his family again, and she didn’t have a clue where she was.

“Cosette?” Enjolras spoke quietly when breakfast finished and everyone had begun to move to the kitchen, to witness the travesty that would be Bahorel preparing lunch. “Might I have a word with you in private?”

“Of course.” Cosette stood, handing her dirty plate to Jehan. He leaned down and kissed her cheek, plopping the Captain’s hat on her head before pulling away and following Courfeyrac.

As soon as she stepped out on deck, the wind greeted her by nearly knocking her off her feet. Enjolras rushed to her side, taking her by the arm and helping her to her feet. “Are you alright?”

She nodded, leaning her weight on him. “Perhaps not _quite_ as recovered as you thought.”

“It didn’t knock you down completely. That’s something.” He held onto her hand firmly and let her link arms with him. “I like the hat, by the way.”

"Thanks." Cosette chuckled and slipped the captain's hat off of her head, handing it to him. "Jehan likes it quite a bit, too."

“He does have a very… _particular_ flair, doesn’t he? Nevertheless, I think we’ll keep him.”

“That would be wise.”

The breeze was gentler now, or maybe it just seemed so because of Enjolras’ aid. Either way, it was refreshing after being cooped up in a tiny room for so long. They stood at the edge of the deck, gazing at the ocean— _God, this is beautiful_. The glittering diamonds of water took her breath away, only this time, she didn’t mind.

And to think, Enjolras and his crew got to live among this _every day_.

“Jehan said that some of your crew was in Tortuga, recovering from injury after a ‘mishap,’” she said, not daring to move her eyes from the spectacle of the sea. “May I ask what kind of mishap?”

Enjolras nodded. “We were ambushed. You’d think after so many years at sea, we’d be used to surprises.” He sighed. “We'd come across a cargo ship. They’re fairly easy to take control of, and we needed the money and food. We chased them down till we were able to board them, fight off the ones who wanted a fight and tie up the rest. But when we went down to take what was theirs, the place was already set to blow, and we had _just_ set off the last of the trap before everything went to hell on us. Most of my crew was hurt, a few more so than others. None of the men from the other ship made it out alive.”

It was then that Cosette had to look away from the ocean. “Why on earth would anyone board a ship that was already sentenced to death?”

“I suspect they didn’t know they were sailing to their own deaths. It wasn’t too far from one of the ports in Tortuga. They must have only just hijacked the boat and not gone down to see the explosives before we boarded them. As much as they tried to get away, they were pleased enough to try to take us down with them. _Les Amis de l’ABC_ isn’t the most popular of ships, you see.”

“Hmm.” It dawned on Cosette that she’d heard the name _Les Amis de l’ABC_ before, at least in passing. Something about young pirates, rioting at every port they stopped at. Her father usually pulled her out of any conversation that mentioned pirates before she could hear anything more than that. “But who would want to destroy a whole group of people like that?”

“Oh, I could think of a few. It could happen among pirates, but not at random. For pirates, it would have to depend on how clever they were and how much they hated those they were damning. But I’d bet my money on the Royal Navy. They’ve been acting out of their way to see to the fall of pirates.”

The change in her face must have been too apparent, because Enjolras grimaced, guilt flashing in his blue eyes—and they were _definitely_ bluer than the sea. Sometimes, even irises sparkled in ways the ocean could not. “I apologize, Cosette. Jehan told me what they did to your father. I should never have been so careless with my words. Granted, that is what I wanted to speak with you about, but you just woke up… I should have thought better. Just forget I mentioned anything.”

“No, no. I don’t mind.” And to her surprise, she really didn’t mind. Of course, it _was_ painful; the ache in her chest grew more and more with every passing minute, but she _wanted_ to talk about what happened, wanted someone to listen. That night was beginning to feel like it had never happened, and she didn’t want it to fade from her. It would be excruciating, and she would more than likely hate herself for it, but she wanted to wear the memory of her father’s death like the tattoos stained on the skin of the pirates among whom she was now living.

And so, she told him. Every word hurt like a dagger to the gut, and many times she had to stop, to catch her breath or stop herself from crying or both, but Enjolras was a patient listener, never faltering when she paused or adding comment. Halfway through, she found herself needing to sit, and so she leaned against the railing of the deck, holding tight to the banister with one hand and tight to Enjolras’ arm with the other, till eventually, her story caught up with the present.

“And you don’t know why the Navy came after your father?” Enjolras said after a beat.

She shook her head. “He’s never had anything to do with the Navy to begin with.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“ _Very_ sure,” she said firmly, even though the reality was that she wasn’t so sure at all. Father had never spoken much of his days before she entered his life. She liked to think that they’d had a trust that most fathers and daughters didn’t, but after the events of the past few nights—and seeing the fear in her father’s eyes just before those men had broken into their home—she couldn’t be certain of anything anymore.

Enjolras frowned, chewing on his bottom lip, deep in thought. Cosette took his silence for granted and closed her eyes, feeling the sway of the ship beneath her bones and listening to the whistle of the wind in her ears. The wind was much kinder now.

When he spoke at last, her eyes shot open. “What did you father do for a living?”

“He was once the mayor of a small port. He did charity work for many of the churches, and continued to work for them even after he got me.”

“He _got_ you?”

“Yes, well, he wasn’t _actually_ my father. My mother was in a poor state when he met her, and while he never gave me the specifics of her situation, I drew my own conclusions after a time. She died asking him to rescue me from my caretakers, and so he did. We began life anew in the town you destroyed.”

Enjolras snorted before he could stop himself. “I think your humor’s recovered before the rest of you. Joly will be thrilled.”

“Speaking of which”—Cosette dragged her finger along the railing, tracing the rings made deep within the wood—“I wanted to thank you, for letting me stay here while I was asleep.”

Enjolras looked surprised. “What else would we have done? We weren’t going to drop you off at the nearest shore and sail away.”

“I thought that’s what most pirates did with unwanted visitors—that or lock them up or gut them.”

“Well, with unwanted visitors, maybe. But not to part of the crew.”

For a moment, she was _sure_ she’d misheard—that the wind or the ocean had been too loud, or her ears were too filled with seawater, or her brain, overcome with exhaustion, had twisted his words into something else. “Pardon?” she said, her eyes wide.

“Well, as long as you’re fine with it. Jehan was rather insistent on it.”

“But… I don’t know a thing about piracy! The majority of my knowledge only comes from books, and that’s hardly what you’d call experience.”

“Half of the crew didn’t know a thing about piracy before I approached them. Bahorel used to be work in women’s fashions in Paris. Besides, the only other option would be to drop you off at some port, and the odds of you making it on your own there are pretty slim.”

He was right. With no money, she wouldn’t even last a month on her own. Even if she did find a job, by some miracle, she still had no home and no food to last her. She would be dead by the end of the week.

“I’m no pirate, Enjolras,” she said. “I couldn’t even face my father’s murderers.”

“But you _did_ save Jehan’s life.” Enjolras smiled softly at her, giving her arm a squeeze. The sun shone behind him and his very aura glowed. “On my ship, that counts for more than a lot of things.”

She stared at the crook of his arm, where the line of a tattoo peeked out from beneath his rolled-up sleeve. Maybe she _had_ saved Jehan’s life, and she was happy to have helped, but that didn’t make her feel like any more of a pirate. It only made her feel like she was trapped on a boat with a group of men she hardly knew, who wanted to take her away to a place she’d never been—she just felt stuck.

But then the boat lurched, just slightly, enough to cause Enjolras to stumble to the side and let the sunlight shine bright against her skin.

(And the sea called to her, again and again, softer and softer, till all she could think of was the horizon.) She’d only ever known this kind of view in her stories, usually picturing them as something that outshone the brightest of diamonds, but now she realized how wrong she’d been. This horizon outshone the stars.

It hit her, then, that she was being offered everything she’d dreamed of. Not only could she start life anew, but she could become _strong_. She could find those who had killed her father, take vengeance against them, and live at sea for the rest of her days.

Perhaps she wasn’t stuck at all—perhaps she was free.

_Cosette, the Pirate. Feared by all men, loved by the sea._

She thought it had a nice ring to it.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire had been staring into the depths of his bottle, trying not to strangle Bahorel as he completely butchered their dinner, when Enjolras slammed the kitchen door behind him.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” Bahorel stormed forward, stabbing the table with the knife he’d been using to stir a pot of boiling water. (Knives and forks were all they had, as the spoons had been used as ammunition for the cannons during their last raid. Fairly effective, but no one had realized how valuable they really were till they were gone.) “Get your lover out of my kitchen! He’s insulting my food and it’s distracting.”

Grantaire tried not to laugh at the bright blush that swept across Enjolras’ face at Bahorel’s casual word choice. “He’s worse than you at cooking, Apollo. I can’t be held responsible for whatever may happen if he chooses to fuck up every one of my recipes.” He pointed the mouth of his bottle at Bahorel. “Do you know how hard it is to perfect the culinary arts for a group of ungrateful pirates _in the middle of the ocean?_ You’re destroying my contributions to this ship.”

“Oh, shut the hell up and drink. You’re just crabby because of your shoulder.”

“See if I ever take a fucking bullet for you.”

Bahorel scoffed. “As if you’d need to.”

“I—hey, careful of the shoulder!” Grantaire protested, snatching his bottle as Enjolras took him by the collar and dragged him out of the kitchen. He wrenched himself away with a scowl, taking another large gulp of booze to numb the sharp pain in his shoulder. “What’s with you? You seem antsy.”

Enjolras ignored his question. “Have you seen Combeferre? I want to talk to him.”

“Probably sleeping. He didn’t get much rest last night, as we well know.”  Grantaire nudged him with his better elbow, but Enjolras wasn’t paying any attention to him. He hurried toward the way of the navigator’s cabin, frustration burning in his eyes and his shoulders rigid in the way they always were when the world was bothering him.

Grantaire caught him by the arm, slipping his hand into Enjolras’, just to see what he’d do. Enjolras didn’t relax, but to his surprise, he also didn’t let go. “What’s wrong?”

“Just… something Cosette said about her father. To her knowledge, the Navy hadn’t had any contact with him prior to that night.”

“Well, she must be missing something. Officers like that always have a reason for doing what they do.” His own days in as an officer in the Royal Navy were mostly clouded by the ever-loved fog that alcohol gave him, but the parts that weren’t so clouded, he remembered too well. Men in uniform, blindly following the higher-ranking officers into battles that shouldn’t have been theirs, murdering even innocent men just to get to the one bad egg hidden in their bunch. In recent years, Enjolras’ regal speeches of corruption became less and less far from the truth. The day he abandoned his station was the second best day of his life.

The day he met Enjolras was the first. (He’d been so sure, half-conscious in an alley with nothing but a rusting medal of honor and a dying breath, that Enjolras was the angel sent to take him into the next world.

Really, that’s exactly what Enjolras had been, and still was to this day.)

“She said he was a man of God, R. He was practically a saint. Do you think the government could be going after innocent men now? Is this what the world is coming to?”

“The world’s been this way for years, Enjolras.” He could see men dying at his feet, pleading with their last breath for mercy that wouldn’t come; whole ships sinking to their graveyards at the sea and blood clouding the blue of the water. Some said it was no different from being a pirate, but Grantaire disagreed. At least as a pirate, he didn’t feel his conscious, the ideals of fighting for your country and for a better tomorrow, sinking to the bottom of the ocean with those ships. At least as a pirate, he knew what he was fighting for.

Mindlessly, he tapped at the glass of his bottle. “And even men of God have their demons.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I am so, so, SO sorry that this has taken so long to update. I didn't mean for it to, but I went on vacation and that threw all of my writing off, and then once I did get back into the swing of writing things, I unintentionally let this story take the back burner. It's a lot harder to update this story than it is my other Les Mis fic, because I'm less certain of what's going to happen in this story. Also, I've got some personal writing I'm really trying to work on, and right now, it really SHOULD be my first priority (even though it's not, because I'm really struggling with it at the moment).
> 
> \- Because I really wanted to get this chapter up as soon as I possibly could, I think I might have given up slightly on trying to take some historical accurateness too seriously? When I do research, I usually end up doing more than necessary, and I don't have that kind of time right now. (I mean, of course I'm not gonna start putting machine guns and jet planes and cell phones and Transformers in the middle of the story. That would be ridiculous. But take the "Exploding Cargo Ship" for instance--I have no idea how that would have happened in technical terms, but do I know that they had ways of blowing things up back then; or the idea of the Navy being super corrupt--I don't know if any of that could have been true, but I figure there's always the chance of corruption in any society.) I'm just saying, use your imagination on some things.
> 
> \- I think it also might be worth mentioning here that I think Grantaire received his medal of honor pretty early into his career as a Naval Officer. Grantaire was a spry young soldier, much like Enjolras in his outlook of the world, till the world turned out to suck and beat him down, making him the cynic we've come to know and love.
> 
> \- Sorry for rambling, and again, sorry for being so late. You all have been way too lovely. Thank you for reading and liking the story, and thank you for being so ridiculously patient. Seriously, hugs and chocolate for you all. xxx


	6. Chapter Five

When Jehan listened to _Les Amis_ , he didn’t just hear the groans in her design caused by ages of wear and one too many a raid. He heard the whispers within her walls, the soft sighs in her creaks, the gentle hum of her sails as they beat against the wind. When they crossed harsh weather, she gritted her teeth and braced herself for tumultuous waves. When the ocean rested, she sighed, relieved. He could write poem after poem about her sounds and murmurs, but even then, he felt that an infinite number of words would never do her justice.

He sat in the crow’s nest, eyes shut and head leaning against the mast. The shining sun felt like the warmth in a lover’s breath. The sea rocked them back and forth, and below him, Grantaire yelled about his shoulder and Bahorel’s obvious cheating in their card game.

Peace had found _Les Amis_ , and so, it had found Jean Prouvaire as well.

“Mind if I join you?”               

Jehan opened an eye, his heart beating twice as fast at the sight of Courfeyrac. “Not at all.”

Courfeyrac fell into the crow’s nest. Jehan crawled over to him, resting his head in his lap. Courfeyrac removed the band holding Jehan’s braid, weaving his fingers through his fair hair, brushing away the knots that always managed to form in the exact same places every day.

“You jumped in after me,” Jehan said softly, smiling. “Joly said you were wrought with panic over me.”

“Is that so surprising?” Courfeyrac wound his finger through one of the tangles of hair, making certain not to pull too hard.

Jehan shook his head. “But it’s still nice to hear.”

“Then I was terrified. Frightened. Petrified. Aghast, shaken, panic-stricken.” For every word, Courfeyrac placed a light kiss to Jehan’s forehead. “I was the biggest scaredy-cat in all the land.”

“Be that as it may, I’d say you’re the best-looking scaredy-cat I’ve ever seen.”

“And I’d probably agree with you.” He leaned down to steal a kiss from Jehan, and while the idea of others stealing from him was much less appealing than the idea of him stealing from others, Jehan would have to admit that he would have let Courfeyrac steal the world from his fingertips if he could.

 _Les Amis_ sighed in her masts as Jehan sighed and giggled against Courfeyrac’s lips.

 

If the idea of a successful first day aboard a pirate ship only consisted of the notion that one did not get shot, stabbed, or killed in some other way, then Cosette’s first official day aboard _Les Amis_ —in which she did not feel like she was going to pass out at the slightest breeze—went considerably well.

First she learned how to rig the ship, which she already had a good understanding of, thanks to the books she had studied and the teachings of those friendly sailors from years prior, after her father had taken her into his care. The lesson would have gone much better had Courfeyrac not told her that books were useless, and had she subsequently not almost punched him in the face. It was then that Bahorel decided she could use an outlet for her anger by learning how to shoot with a pistol (a lesson during which Courfeyrac wisely decided to stay as far below deck as he possibly could), but uncertainty met the strange coldness of the gun in her hand; the way it reverberated throughout her entire body when she shot it took her by too much surprise, shaking her and making her feel like she had little control of the situation. She preferred the hilt of a blade, but before she could say so, the boat lurched and Cosette lost her aim, nearly shooting Bahorel in the thigh.

After a bit of time, she did manage to shoot the flour sack-targets he had set up for her, but learning to wield a gun on a boat made both her and Bahorel a tad anxious.

To calm down, he took her down to see the canons, swords, and other guns they’d collected over the course of time, showing her how to properly load the canon and take care of the other weaponry. Cosette liked Bahorel—his volume and bluntness reminded her of the rustle of waves and the clapping of thunder during a storm. He said things that would have made the most of the ladies back in town take offence, and when he laughed, he laughed with everything he had in him.

But she would have been lying to herself if she didn’t think that he appeared a tad too pleased with his explosives.

When she told Combeferre this later, as he showed her the maps and charts he had spread across his cabin like the poetry in Jehan’s own chambers, Combeferre chuckled and replied, “Yes, we’ve all come to the conclusion that Bahorel will most likely blow the entire ship up before we’d ever be gunned down by the Navy.”

Combeferre, she liked for vastly different reasons. He was quiet and calm, the ocean following Bahorel’s storm. He liked books like she did and had a great respect for knowledge. He had an incomparable soft fierceness to him that she almost mistook for stoicism, and it complimented the passion that filled Enjolras as much as the moon complimented the sun. As the days wore on, when she took breaks from chores and found Jehan and Courfeyrac far too caught up in each other in some corner of the ship, Cosette found herself enjoying Combeferre’s books and company and gentle laugh.

Of course, her fondness for the other crew members grew more and more each day. As quartermaster, Courfeyrac dedicated himself to the delicate planning of raids, yet he was energetic and a bigger flirt than anyone she’d ever known, offering her a dramatic marriage proposal only minutes into her second morning aboard _Les Amis_. He calculated in a manner quite like Combeferre, though he spoke more fondly of love than of Combeferre's books; his dynamic smile rivaled Enjolras’, bright in a different, more impish way.

And when he watched Jehan, he practically radiated glee.

Joly took care of her health carefully, checking up on her often and offering multitudes of chocolate, to her delight, till she had regained her strength. Occasionally his nervousness got the better of him—such as when Jehan showed signs of a cold and quite suddenly, Joly thought he, too, felt feverish and had convinced himself that he was on his deathbed—but for the most part, he had the liveliness of a child. Once, as he tended to her after a bout of dizziness, she convinced him to tell her all about this Musichetta she’d heard so much about, which led to him telling her of another crew member, Bossuet. Cosette hadn’t ever known anyone to be in love with two people, but the way Joly spoke of his beloveds made her wonder if that was the reason for his constant joyful spirits. If she had two people to love and two people to love her back, she, too, would be twice as happy.

Then there was Grantaire, who found happiness with a bottle of alcohol in one hand and his paintbrush in the other (or so it would have been if he was able to use both arms at the present time). Like Bahorel, he spoke in loud, blunt words (sometimes a little too blunt, mainly when he was drunk) and he made her laugh at some of the crudest of things, but she also suspected that he didn’t entirely know what to think of her presence on the ship. Regardless, he was kind enough with her, offering to paint her when she felt better rested. She also proved that her cooking skills surpassed Bahorel’s, thus causing Grantaire to fall into a state of dramatics, in which he got down on bended knee and passionately thanked the gods for salvation from Bahorel’s poisonous and vile delicacies.

And of course, there was Enjolras, who—while often swept up by his plans for rallies or the government’s dealings—continued to be pleasant and friendly with her, though sometimes she got the feeling that he thought her situation would better his revolution.

“He means well, and does truly care,” Combeferre told her when she’d brought it up. “Sometimes he gets a little too caught up in his cause, but that doesn’t mean he sees you as anything less than a person. If he did anything of the sort, he would be the first person to beg you to slap him for it.”

Enjolras was young and fiery and a man of the people—which stumped her more than she thought it would. He was the opposite of everything she’d thought pirates to be. It made her pay better attention to the way he carried himself (proud, sure of himself, but not in a cocky way), the way he plotted and planned (strategically and carefully), the way he spent time with his friends (jovially, but not exactly carefree; the cause constantly hung in the back of his mind, but he still regarded the crew as more than friends—they were his family).

And when she watched the lot of them, she couldn’t help but wonder with painful longing if they were her family, too.

 

(Sometimes at night, she would wake up, sobbing and choking for air, sweating through the linens of the bed. Her nightmares ranged from the echoes of the gunshots from her house, just pounding through her brain like a heartbeat till she woke, to the memory of stabbing that officer, watching the life fade from his eyes—except in her dreams, the memory was garbled and twisted and each time more horrible to witness than the last. Some nights, she’d wander around the ship till the night air had cleared her senses enough for her to return to Jehan’s cabin. Other times, she sobbed herself to back into a dreamless stupor.

By morning, her brave face would once again revive itself, and she smiled and laughed with the others as if nighttime never really even existed.)

 

“Feet! Remember what I said about feet.”

Cosette grimaced and set her feet more accurately apart, keeping her head level and her pistol aimed as well as she could keep it, considering the movement of the ship and the jostling of the wind, although even the latter wasn’t much to complain about. Their sailing had been slow for the past couple of days, and while they welcomed smooth waters, dull winds made for dull sails. The journey to Tortuga was becoming painstakingly slow. Even Combeferre, who prided himself on his loyal maps and whose career as a pirate exceeded Cosette’s by miles, found himself wondering aloud if the ocean ever had an end.

Regardless of her fixed posture, Bahorel approached her and adjusted her limbs till they met his instructions. For all his hearty laughs and joyful spirits, Bahorel turned into somewhat of a stickler when it came to teaching Cosette the way around a gun. It made her admire him, just as she admired Courfeyrac and his devotion to his plans and his crew, Grantaire to his paintings, or Joly to his medicine, but that didn’t make her any less tired either.

“When you’re ready,” Bahorel said, stepping out of the line of fire.

“Go, Euphrasie!” Jehan shouted over the quarterdeck, giving her a thumbs-up while Joly clapped.

Cosette did a mental check-over to see if she was ready, per Bahorel’s instructions, and tried to relax.

“…  Wha the fuck’s Euphrasie?” she overheard from her right side, where Grantaire slumped against the steps of the helm.

She pulled the trigger.

When she blinked, the newest of twenty previous bullet-holes lodged itself into the sack of flour, about a centimeter below the sloppy target Courfeyrac had drawn for her. It wasn’t perfect, because she’d missed, but it was closer than the last shot had been, and so Cosette grinned.

“You _moved_.” Bahorel sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Your arm, you moved it, didn’t you?”

The grin vanished from Cosette’s face. “I don’t know, I tried not to! The ship may have jostled me, perhaps—”

“Excuses, excuses.”

“I beg your pardon?” She cocked the pistol and pointed it directly at Bahorel’s forehead. Bahorel froze momentarily, glancing back and forth between the barrel of the gun and her face, before bursting out with laughter.

“You’re making me want to shoot you even more,” she grumbled, her frown deepening.

“Oh, Cosette, you’re darling.” Bahorel stepped forward, grabbing the gun from her and emptying it of the remainder of bullets. “You’re also frustrated, and anxious, and exhausted, judging by the circles under your eyes. Oh, and you’re a terrible shot.”

“You said I was doing well yesterday!”

“Yes, but _well_ isn’t _great_ , and anything not _great_ is automatically _not as good as me_ , otherwise known as _terrible_. Sorry, that’s just how it is.”

“But that isn’t fair, because _nobody’s_ as good as you!”

“You’re damn right they’re not.”

“Exactly! So why are you ragging on me instead of ragging on everyone else?”

Bahorel grinned. Cosette only looked at him, but she could feel the others smile around her, laughing to themselves at her fury. Even Enjolras chuckled, masking the noise terribly, from his, Combeferre’s, and Courfeyrac’s chart table on the quarterdeck.

“Because you’re new,” Bahorel replied, drunk on her frustration, “and when you get mad, you get really red in the face, and you look like a tomato. Like I said, Cosette: you’re just darling.”

It was hardly an insult, but having been subject to Bahorel’s remarks and her increasingly evident lack of sleep, Cosette had already hit her limit for the day, and it was only mid-afternoon. As Bahorel turned to return the pistol back to its cabin, she made a quick look at Jehan, who beamed at her with unyielding joy beneath Enjolras’ captain’s hat. With that, she ran after Bahorel and blocked his path before he could leave the deck.

“I want to duel,” she said.

Bahorel gaped at her, his booming roar of laughter erupting throughout their corner of the sea. “You want to _what_?”

“You heard me. Right here, right now.”

“Cosette, I’m not quite sure you understand the full meaning of a duel… You _are_ aware that you have to be good at something to duel with it, right?”

“We’re not fighting with guns.” She knew he was right about her—her marksmanship could use some improvement, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. “We’re fighting with swords.”

That, at least, made him stop laughing for a moment. “We haven’t even started practicing with swords! At least with the gun you know what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“I don’t know about that, Bahorel,” Jehan called. “She took down an officer with a sword. I think you might be underestimating her.”

“And if you’re not, then it’ll be an easy fight for you.” Cosette smirked at him. “Come on, I’m just _darling_ , after all.”

She knew she had him the moment she’d challenged him, but only in that second did his interest peak, going by the way he begun to bounce from heel to heel, smiling madly to himself. “Oh, you want this, don’t you? Fine, you’ve got a fight, _Euphrasie_. Let me get my best blades.”

“You better. I don’t spar with sticks.”

Five minutes later, Bahorel clambered back up to the deck, swinging two swords around as if they really were just a couple of sticks he’d found lying on the ground. He tossed one of them up in the air— _Show off_ —and caught it gently by the blade, unharmed.

He bowed and held the sword out to her. “For you, dear lady.”

Rolling her eyes, she took the sword from him and stood back, standing in position at the opposite end of the deck. If she allowed herself to admit it (which she wouldn’t have), she would say that maybe her nerves started to get to her, with the crew drawing forward to watch her and Bahorel duel. At the same time, she might also admit that Bahorel was about to have his pride served to him on a silver platter, because she instantly remembered the thrilling feel of the sword in her hand and how she was taught to use it like an extension of her arm—but of course, she would never admit _that_ , as her father taught her that bragging would never get her anywhere.

She’d let the sword brag for her.

“I don’t want you going easy on me,” she said, watching the glint of sunlight hit the edge of the sword.

Bahorel scoffed. “Oh, believe me. That’ll be the least of your concerns.”

His sword struck hers before she could prepare herself. He moved forward, and it came down on her again, backing her into the corner till all she could do was push his sword away from hers to get him off of her.

“Told you I wouldn’t go easy on you,” Bahorel chuckled before he charged at her again.

This wasn’t fencing, she had to remind herself as their swords clanged against each other, the vibrations of which were so forceful that she could practically feel them in her bones. Bahorel was just as good as her, and at some seconds she wondered if he might have been better than her, because he was a pirate and played as dirty as the smudges of gunpowder and grime always marring his face. His movements were full of thunderous force, but they didn’t lack the elegance of a proper swordsman, the fluid motions or the precise footwork. But she was smaller and quicker. He dodged where she thrust; his brutal attacks met her quick parries. They danced across the deck of the boat, swiping and clashing against each other, leaving scratches over the other’s skin and decimating areas of the boat. Grantaire had to back away at one point, as no part of their secluded space was left safe.

“I didn’t think it would be _necessary_ to tell you _not to kill each other_ —” Joly said, only to yelp as Jehan pulled him away from turning into an accidental target.

Bahorel brought his sword down, jumping back and forth on each foot, ready for the next blow. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Cosette answered by striking again. Elbows close, feet as wide as her shoulders, keeping balance; she let the sword do its work, determined not to fall out of step or make a move too risky, because _that_ was the very problem with Bahorel. He put on a show for her. Every graceful step boasted of all the men he’d slain for his title as the best. As soon as that fact hit her, she realized that he would never win.

As the seconds wore on, so did his attention. She feigned weariness, only defending herself rather than attacking him, causing his arrogance to increase and his swordsmanship to grow sloppy. Finally, when he thought he had her in the palm of his hand and struck, she put all her strength back into her retaliation and deflected his blow, catching him off-balance. In his stupor of surprise, she grabbed control of their battle, backing him into the nearest corner and finally, striking the sword out of his hands. He raised his hands slightly in defeat as she held the tip of her sword at his throat.

“Is that all _you’ve_ got?” she said, a curve in her mouth to go with the twinkle in her eye. The boat erupted in hoots and hollers of admiration, the crew storming away from their various perches to congratulate her. When Jehan got to her, he kissed the back of her hands and swung her around in a lazy dance, letting her spin out of his arms and into Combeferre's.

" _You lost_!" Courfeyrac exclaimed to Bahorel. "Have you ever lost before?"

"Have you ever had your leg broken before?" Bahorel muttered, but Courfeyrac was too busy laughing with Joly to hear him.

Enjolras clapped Cosette on the back, beaming at her. “I think we’ve got another expert swordsman in our midst."

“Good!” Grantaire said, offering his congratulations by raising his bottle and giving Cosette an unsteady bow. “Maybe she can be your bodyguard. I can’t keep dodging bullets for you.”

“For the last time, would you stop complaining?”

“Sorry, what was that? I almost shake hands with death for you and you want me not to complain? Are you _suppressing_ me, Apollo? Do I not have a right to be _heard_?”

“Fuck you and your stupid shoulder.”

Grantaire and Enjolras continued to make a spectacle amongst themselves off to the side. Bahorel, the last to approach her, grinned and held out his hand. Cosette took it, his grip almost as crushing as his the rest of him.

“You’re still a fucking _awful_ shot.”

She laughed, her head swimming with delight. For that moment, the spirits of storybook sea captains and savage swashbucklers sunk into her bones, and the thought of them ever leaving seemed too impossible to imagine. At least that night, when grief and panic inevitably kept her from sleeping, she would have something pleasant to use in battle against the haunting nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- lol I think I was unintentionally lying when I said that I wouldn't research as much, because I totally researched the heck out of Bahorel and Cosette's sword fight and I really, really tried to make it as realistic as I could (without, you know, having any real-life experience at all), so I hope I did okay! *returns to writing cave, pretending to know what she's doing*  
> \- The sword fight was something I'd been waiting a while to do, too, so that was fun :)  
> -(also this story is turning out a little darker than I had expected????? At least Jehan and Courfeyrac are there to turn everything into cuddles and flowers and puppies and whatnot.)  
> \- I was listening to a bunch of instrumentals yesterday and I came across one piece of music that just fit the story PERFECTLY. It's from the video game Bioshock Infinite (which I love), and although it doesn't really have anything to do with pirates, the song just reminds me of pirates and Cosette all the same. Here's the link if you'd like to listen to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwDzbZcUTok  
> -Come talk to me on tumblr, if you'd like! manicpixiedreamfedora.tumblr.com


End file.
